


01000100 01101001 01110110 01101001 01101110 01100101

by WahlBuilder



Category: E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gender-ambiguous narration, Other, POV Alternating, Pre-Game(s), extensive use of intertext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 06:03:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8133079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: A story of two knights of E.Y.E, their feelings, discoveries and hidden truths.Everything had started with a simple mission that Satevis, a knight of the Culter Dei, had been assigned to. But it didn't go as expected, not when another knight had appeared. 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01110010 01110101 01110100 01101000 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01101001 01100100 01100100 01100101 01101110 00101110





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Something was awry about that mission from the start. Satevis knew it would go awry.

Firstly, it was simple—but since E.Y.E. had not been on good terms with other factions of interest lately, they had to use the knights or send mercenaries instead of other agents. And that was no mission for a mercenary. An abandoned mine-world1 barely deserving the title of ‘world’; apparently, it had been chosen by a gang of smugglers exactly because of its abandoned status and distance from major routes, and E.Y.E. wouldn’t have taken interest in smugglers if they hadn’t been smuggling arms. So Satevis’s objective was to drop on the surface, get to the smugglers’ den, either negotiate with the gang or eliminate them, set a beacon and wait for a shuttle to collect the stash. Satevis was to go with the shuttle when the mission was over.

Simple.

Secondly, Satevis had been sent all alone.

It was no surprise, though, since no sane officer would send anyone with Satevis. The knight wouldn’t have taken anyone along anyway. But Satevis was not made for such operations. They could have dispatched a hacker to jam the communications or even to possess one of the members of the gang. No doubt that the gang had at least several cyborgs among them. Dealing in arms with firearms-starved systems would have given them enough money to augment at least the leader and lieutenants. Under the right conditions a powerful Puppet Master could even make the gang members kill each other.2

En route to the DX-61 Satevis had studied the maps of the mining area. The gang would be located in one of the mining complexes, probably in the biggest and oldest one. It was likely that the complex still had its power generators running, which meant that it was a good base of operations, and it had a big enough dock. This mine dated way back to pre-War times which meant stable tech and power, probably several nuclear reactors or even solar collectors, though the system’s sun way slowly dying. But then, the mining was not operational so they didn’t need that much power anyway.

The reports of The Incident, as it had been called, worried Satevis somewhat. The whole world had gone offline a few years into the War. It had been remote enough so that the main action hadn’t reached it, and it was not important enough to investigate what had happened right away, but when the Federation had had enough time to breathe, they had noticed that the world had not been responding for some time already. They had sent investigators.

Who had found the world absolutely empty.

Satevis would have doubted the Feds’ report if not for the fact that Secreta themselves had investigated the site, and for a change, the two reports were almost identical: no sign of the workers, as if they had imply vanished. There had been no trace of any alien activity either, nor there was any sign of the Metastreum. It hadn’t looked like the Metastreum’s doing, too clean, too... empty.

Then, one local year ago, the smugglers had claimed the world.

It seemed they were not bothered by ghost stories.

The Culter Dei, Satevis had been told, had acquired the information about the base through rumours and via tips from the informants.

The gang had managed to activate the anti-meteor defence system, so that meant that the gang had a tech-specialist. It also meant no direct drop action. Only a covert operation.

And Satevis knew how to work covert.

The small automatic spacecraft used decoy mechanism. It dropped Satevis at the wasteland, far away from the main facilities of the mines. The main complex had been located inside a canyon covered by shields. Inside the canyon there was breathable atmosphere—not that Satevis had any problems with that. According to the reports and recon, the gang operated on a frequently changing schedule. They were keeping a snowstorm that they dropped only when the scheduled craft was ready to land.

After landing at the bottom of a shallow crater, Satevis read the parameters of the world shown on retinal display and compared it to the old data from the reports. Making the necessary adjustments to the initial plans and calculations, the knight set an appropriate pace to reach the base in a few standard hours.

The landscape was bleak. The almost complete lack of the atmosphere made the shadows sharp and the lights too bright. Satevis’s display adjusted accordingly, and the knight started making leaps towards the mine. The ridge of the canyon walls was looming on the horizon—a dark silhouette with the backdrop of the angry red eye of the stystem’s sun. Satevis began reciting mantras that had been designed to aid in combat.

The plan was to get to the canyon and either peer down into it and assess the situation, or drop inside if the conditions were not favourable for recon from the distance and the storm was active. Satevis doubted the gang was huge. More people meant more trouble, more chances that somebody would give them away. But somebody had to transport the goods off-world. Most likely they had two small crafts making way to neighbouring systems—that was the word about it anyway. Plus, a team guarding the mine complex itself at all times, supported by techs.

The knight had reached the canyon and leapt to a triangular rock overlooking it.

The more humans encountered unusual things inhabiting the universe, the more superstitious they became, but Satevis knew there were no such things as gods or demons, or even luck. Many humans would have counted as luck the fact that the canyon hadn’t been covered by a storm, but Satevis called it happenstance.

Most certainly, it was one of the days the gang was going to get off-world to deliver or acquire goods, and that was that.

Satevis dropped flat on the rock and uncovered the rifle, then peered down through the scope.

The mining complex was built into the rock of the canyon itself. Even with the maximum magnification Satevis couldn’t see the bottom of the colossal abyss. The loading area was a moving bridge reaching across the width of the canyon to the opposite wall, but now only one half of the bridge had been stretched over the long fall. The mouth of the docking area was not wide but the width of the bridge suggested it had been designed to offer landing space for a big cargo shuttle. DX-61 had been specialising in heavy metals, long time ago, though now the gang didn’t need it.

But they were cocky enough to not dock their small shuttle inside.

All the better for Satevis.

For now, the shuttle was being unloaded in a quick and efficient fashion. Either someone in the gang had worked in a similar field in the past, or the gang had been in the business for quite some time.

Satevis decided to drop behind the shuttle on the bridge. Judging by the movements of the gangmembers Satevis concluded that under the shield, mauve under the red starlight, gravitation had been more substantional than that on the planet as a whole. The old tech—the anti-metero defence, the gravigenerators—was valuable, maybe even more valuable than whatever arms the gang had posssessed.

The knight doubted that negotiations were possible. Experience in such situations dictated to just eliminate the whole gang—the crew that had been operating the facility and the crew of the shuttle, three or four tens in total.

Satevis was pondering whether to take off the people moving on the bridge with quiet shots or to make a drop and then take off the gang—when the knight spotted movement on the wall near the mouth of the docking area. Adjusting the optics, Satevis cursed quietly.

The Jian.

The dulled black of the armour was unnoticebale in the shadow of the ridged wall, and the Jian was hugging close to the rock, probably using a magnetic device.

Darkness and dullness—the Jian was probably using a cloak, too,—didn’t let Satevis to make out the _maedate_ though the bulkiness suggested the armour was at least medium. Was the Jian alone? What was the Jian doing here? Hunting down the gang? Trying to get the shipment before the Culter Dei?

Was the command of the two Orders at odds with each other again?

Satevis didn’t care about the rivalry-competition between the two branches of E.Y.E. as long as it didn’t make work difficult—but it did that more often than not.

The knight sighed, covered the rifle, slung it on the back and made a few leaps along the edge of the canyon to the point where the drop would bring Satevis right on the bridge. The knight found a loose rock and balanced on it.

And then jumped.

The jerk and heavy pulling lure of the abyss told Satevis that, indeed, under the shield, the gravi-generators were working, bringing the pull almost to the 100% of that on Mars. Audiosensors brought Satevis cries of dangers of the gang members. The rocks Satevis’s jump had upset were falling with a dry roar, and judging by the controlled commands of the gang it was obvious that rockslides had been frequent enough here to get used to it.

And the noise hid Satevis’s fall.

As the bridge drew near, Satevis released the maglock on the sagaris and gripped the haft.

The knight landed behind the shuttle, circled it to get a clear view of the bridge, and rouse one gloved hand, uttering a command.

A ghost in the image of a heavy armoured knight appeared before stunned gang members, the holographic projection clear and almost palpable, mocking in its reality. The gang dropped the crates and controls of the graviplatforms, gripped their guns and started shooting at the projection.

A grave mistake.

The sagaris with the head in the form of a hawk was rising and falling in an even rhythm as Satevis was moving through the screaming, confused gang, and shifting through frequencies, trying to find the command.

‘It’s a Psycho, kill him, kill him!’

Why did they always think that all E.Y.E. warriors used sorcery?

And why did they always think that the knights were male?

‘Your interference is unwelcome, kindred,’ cut a voice into Satevis’s communication lines.

The knight grunted, crushing the skull of a gang member who was trying to shoot the power armour with a handgun, and even the cyberplating didn’t stop the hawk blade.

‘What are you doing here, Jian?’ Satevis barked, ducking behind a container with protein bricks.

The gang was organising fast, overturning containers and covering behind them. It would only prolong the agony, though, not stop it.

Satevis activated enhancing mechanisms in the armour and jumped on the container in time to see the Jian descending behind the makeshift barricade. and two out of five covering gang members suddenly screamed and started shooting their comrades.

Satevis got a good look at the _maedate_ at the Jian’s helm.

It was a scorpion, poised to strike.

Satevis cursed quietly. Rage rose inside, hard to control, and Satevis barely suppressed it. Switching the sagaris from left hand to the right, the knight unholstered the 222, made two giant leaps to the Jian and shot a bullet through the head of one possessed gang member then decapitated the other.

Then Satevis whirled to the Jian. ‘What in the Nine Hells are you doing here, hacker?’

‘Just like you, kindred, I'm on a mission.’ The voice drifting to Satevis across the commlink was devoid of all emotion. ‘And it’s “cybermancer”, not “hacker”.’

Turning off the energy draining leg enhancing, Satevis let out a growl and another curse. Cursed cybermancer! Damned psyker! Calm down, knight, you have to calm down...

‘They are closing the doors.’

Satevis roared and rushed to the doors. They fell, heavy, crushing, on the knight’s shoulders. The Jian was still looming on the crates. Satevis growled, itching to reach out and shove the Jian. ‘What are you waiting for? Get in!’

Finally the Jian hastened inside, and Satevis stepped in after the damned psyker.

 _I am the master of my rage_ , Satevis tried to recite inaudibly as blood roared through the whole body, hands twitching on the grip of the weapons. _And my wrath is my weapon. Let them fill me but not control—_

‘Pay attention, kindred.’

Satevis snapped out of the crimson haze to take in the vast space of the storage area that served as a docking bay for small crafts, and the flickering lights, the wailing of the siren.

And the machine gun, rolling right onto them.

Satevis lifted the 222 but didn’t get to fire as suddenly the space around the gunner darkened, as if sucked into miniature black hole, and a shrill cry pierced the air then dropped dead as the smuggler disappeared in a hole of nothingness, and out of that hole, the Jian crawled and stood up, shaking.

If Satevis hadn’t been trained so well, the breakfast the knight had crunched on the way to DX-61 would have already been on the floor.

Cursed psykers!

The stunned silence as the gang members—three on the catwalk overlooking the docking area, one in the control room, two in the doorway, as Satevis noted automatically—processed what had just happened, and Satevis used that pause to shoot the trio on the catwalk.

‘Fucking Psychos! Fall back, fall back!’

The Jian stretched a hand towards the two in the doorway that turned to run, and they swiftly shot each other.

The Jian was very, very good, probably the level of a Necrocybermancer. Or even worse.

Satevis shot the guy in the control room right through the armoured glass, and went to the Jian, gripping the haft of the sagaris. ‘If you use Dragon’s Breath in front of me once more...’

‘Then what?’

Being raised and spending all your life among the people who wore closed helms or masks most of the time, or were so heavily augmented they were incapable of using facial muscles made you adept at picking on other signs of emotions, mostly by reading voices.

But the Jian’s voice was as impenetrable as the helm with simple, featureless _somen_ protecting the face.

_Then what, Satevis?_

The song of rage was seductive, pulling, taunting, teasing, let go, knight, the Jian is the only target in the immediate vicinity, just let go, plunge the sagaris through the mask, crumble the scorpion, tear the psyker apart, you want to, give in, give in—

Satevis barely shook off the lure as the bright warning signals flashed on the retinal display, and then the knight registered the trembling of the ground in time with the flashing red circles on the map of the area on the display.

The doors to their left had opened with a hiss, and a massive hulk of metal stepped into the docking area, shaking the walls.

It was nearly the size of a small spacecraft, but armoured like a space cruiser. It was covered with crude drawings of the gang’s crest. A curled scorpion.

Satevis roared and let the song of rage flow.

 

‘The storm is blocking all signals,’ Satevis grumbled. ‘I can’t turn the beacon on. No use.’ The knight walked back inside and across the docking area, already covered with piles of snow, and ducked under the doorway, then punched the manual closing system. Sensors of the door had been fired during the fight.

‘The storm will continue for the next five standard hours,’ drifted a tired voice over the commlink, and Satevis took in the slight trembling in it.

The knight navigated narrow corridors, moving towards the main control room. Walls were made of transparent plastiglass, and the red emergency light made the rock behind the glass give off an eerie glint. If you looked too closely, you could see something moving within the stone—but that had to be just an illusion born from combined texture of the rock and the lights.

Satevis manually opened the door to the main control.

Most of the space in the seven-to-seven room had been occupied by the control panel and one of the walls was full of monitors. Here was the heart of the complex—one of the two hearts, to be exact, the other being the main generator deep in the rock itself. The bridges, the anti-meteor system, shields, gravity, climate control, communications—all of it had been maintained from here.

Now most of the monitors were tuned to the outer sensors placed in the canyon and showing only the dark-white emptiness of the snowstorm. One of the monitors was overrun with various data: electro-magnetic parameters of the storm, readings from the generators, inner climate readings, too much and too fast for a normal human to process, but nothing a trained and augmented knight couldn’t take in and analyse.

The monitors and flickering lights on the panel itself were the only source of light, and the light was dancing on the Jian’s face.

Satevis frowned. ‘Why have you taken off your helm?’

It was difficult to say in such a gloom and with the constant changing colours and flickering of the lights, though Satevis could adjust the settings of the helm but wasn’t inclined to do so; but the Jian’s skin appeared to be bronze, and the left eye was alight with golden glimmer, watching the monitors. The other eye remained in the shadow and Satevis couldn’t tell its colour.

The lights of the monitors cast a glow at the Jian’s face, fine-featured, and caught on a fine-meshed netting on the right cheek, indicating syntheskin, probably augmented. The Jian had taken off most of the armour, too, leaving only the bodyglove, boots and leg armour.

And the Jian was shaking.

Satevis sighed and went to the Jian, and put a palm on unarmoured shoulder—and to Satevis’s surprise, the Jian startled and looked up. For a moment, Satevis caught a haunted expression on the grafted face, then it tuned back into unreadable mask.

‘The armour feels too tight when I’m crashing.’ The Jian went silent after that again.

Damned psykers.

Dragon’s Breath was a powerful psi-skill, and quite draining of the wielder’s energy. It was also a dangerous skill, even more dangerous than all other powers. Any fluctuation in the caster’s mood, energy, will, in the environment could throw them into any direction during the cast, or twist their mind, or even kill them.

Satevis couldn’t dream of ever mastering such a force, and didn’t want to anyway. The knight was contect with only using the basic alchemic psi-skills, and sometimes, if the situation was most dire, making clones. But nothing beyond that.

Everyone knew that the more you tapped into that bottomless dark well, the more it turned against you and wanted to swallow you. Psykers were unstable, dangerous not only to their foes, but to allies as well—

 _Much like you are, knight_ , Satevis suddenly thought.

And you are stuck with a psyker—a Necrocybermancer, no less,—on a world where no communication will be possible for several hours.

Damned psykers.

The Jian was clutching the armrests of the chair, seemingly trying to contain the shaking.

Satevis sighed. ‘I would like to know your name. I am Satevis, the Slayer of the Chorus Aqua. And who are you? You are of the House of Scorpio?’

The lights must have played a thing because for a moment, it looked like a smile flickered on the Jian’s lips.

‘Obviously, kindred. Huoxing, Necrocybermancer of the House of Scorpio. Pleased to meet you.’ Didn’t sound very pleased, though.

Hackers and psykers, most of the knights in that damned House, and all raving mad as an overdosed cyberjunkie.

The Jian’s shaking was becoming more violent with each passing minute. Satevis sighed again and unlocked the magclasps of the helm, then took it off and put it on the control panel. The Jian didn’t even turn away from the monitors, staring into the mess of the storm—but Satevis couldn’t shake off the feeling that the Jian was watching not only the monitors.

The gloves were next, then the complicated system of the breastplate. Satevis took a deep breath of processed and recirculated air of the complex, cool and with an underlying dry scent of plastiglass. Then the knight moved behind the Jian and put arms around the Scorpio.

The Jian tensed, and Satevis couldn’t help but feel a little proud at catching the damned psyker off-guard.

The bodyglove didn’t allow to assess the body temperature of the Jian, so Satevis nuzzled the short messy hair of the psyker. It smelled of metal alloys and electricity, and the slight sweetness of old blood and heavy spice of sweat. And the Jian was cold.

Satevis tightened the hold on the psyker, feeling muscles move, trying to break the powerful body free.

The Jian was built not as sturdy as Satevis, clearly trained for a different kind of work and honed for different tasks, and holding someone felt... good. Better than Satevis could have imagined.

The monitors didn’t transmit the sound of the storm, but Satevis couldn’t easily extract it from the memory: the howl of the wind in the canyon, as if the black abyss itself was wailing from below; the deafening swirl of thick snow; the distant grumble of falling rocks...

And here they were, the two of them, trapped in the heart of all this.

The muscles under Satevis’s hands shifted, and the knight was looking in the eyes of the psyker, unreadable. In the left eye, Satevis saw swirling rings, and wondered if the psyker was processing what was before, if the psyker was trying to hack into Satevis’s mind, though the knight would have felt it. Should have felt it.

‘Want me to let go?’ Satevis didn’t know why it came out in a whisper. The knight’s gaze traveled to the Jian’s lips, cracked, with faint bruising as if the psyker had been chewing on them.

‘No. I like your touch.’ And for once, the Jian sounded hesitant, uncertain.

Satevis smiled. ‘Maybe I should show you my touches. My moves. Shall we dance?’

And then Satevis closed the distance between them and kissed the damned psyker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  1 All Federal records about the world designated ‘DX-61’ have been destroyed.  
>   
> 2 This appears to be an unlikely scenario unless most of the gang members have been augmented. Still, a powerful Puppet Master or a Divine Cybermancer, indeed, can make people kill each other or commit suicide.


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The creature didn’t have any prominent head or eyes, though the sphere in the center could be considered the creature’s body. Nine legs made of living metal that constantly changed forms served as the means of movement for the creature. They were tendrils, like a stalactite of water reaching up after a drop falls and disturbs the surface.

The overall form looked decidedly spider-like, but Huoxing didn’t feel neither remorse nor fear—either of those emotions would have been hypocritical for a cenobite from a House that had scorpion as its symbol and totem.

Though the way creature moved didn’t remind Huoxing of spiders. Rather, it was like an octopus, flowing, changing. Huoxing had seen one on Billabong1, on another mission. The planet had the most famous oceanarium in the whole Federation. Namely, it was famous because Billabong was an arid world. The oceanarium belonged to the system’s corporation. Breaking into the planetary net, Huoxing had learned that the cost of the building had been tremendous, mostly because all water in the oceanarium had been transported from off-world, along with creature from all corners of the universe. The oceanarium occupied a mountain plato that had been one of Billabong’s continents in the distant past.

The octopus Huoxing had seen was one of the Earthian descendants, a small graceful creature, like a colourful wave slightly more solid than the water it had been living in.

The creature Huoxing was watching flowed with the same grace, though it couldn’t change colour.

One—the creature asked Huoxing use this pronoun—flowed over the chamber, picking with one’s black tendrils one object, lifting it closer to the body, then placing it back down carefully and flowing to the next.

The objects were scattered on floor. They were different, insimiliar, everything Huoxing had managed to find on the small Order spacecraft. One had already explored the station and everything it contained.

The amount of things Huoxing had managed to bring was not huge; the cenobite never carried a lot of items on missions expect for essentials. And not that the amount of personal items had been high back in the Temple; modesty and temperance were virtues praised among the E.Y.E. cenobites. And what use would they have anyway for such items?

But since meeting the Culter, Satevis, the amount of Huoxing’s personal trinkets had been growing, they were mostly trinkets from the worlds they visited, especially from joint missions. Huoxing held them close in the cell in the Temple, keeping them on a shelf above the cot.

What would the creature find in that collection?

Huoxing had taken a small book on this journey. It was miniature, easily fitting the cenobite’s palm, significantly heavier than portable digital readers, and it was not a replica, but a genuine piece. All its pages, yellow-white like old bone, were encased in molecule-thin protective covers. It was written in one of the languages of the Ancient Earth, one that even Huoxing had trouble reading, dating back to the early 20th century by the old Western system. It was a book of poetry, consisting of fifteen pieces, a _sonnet redoubl_ _é_ , fifteen sonnets, entwining, changing, twisting. Coupled with Huoxing’s undoubtedly missing some references due to the language barrier and the centuries that had passed since the book had been published, the writing was as mysterious as the depths of the universe, but something in it spoke to Huoxing, the poetry of stars and loneliness and longing. The book had fifteen etchings depicting strange places: a palace in the desert with stars raining down on it; a river with a human face in the current like a shadow imprint in a mirror; a sphere of light surrounded by darkness; a set of hills with grass bending under the wind. A crown of stars, _Corona Astralis_ , that was the title of the whole _sonnet redoubl_ _é_. The etchings were black and white, simple but strangely entrancing. Reading the sonnets aloud and looking at the etchings, Huoxing could forget about hours flowing by, trying to decipher hidden meaning of the poetry and the etchings.

The covers, though, had been made to show coloured versions of the etchings, hovering like smoke over the pages. Huoxing didn’t even try to imagine how much that ‘colouring’ work had cost to Satevis. Huoxing liked the original etchings and the coloured version alike, one being a strange mystery, the other a generous gift of love.

Huoxing carried the book everywhere, hiding it under the armour, and under the tunic when in the Temple, its weight comforting on the belt.

Now Huoxing was holding it to the creature. A tendril flowed to the book and brushed it gently.

The cenobite didn’t doubt that the creature understood its importance.

‘You love your Satevis.’ One's voice was neither high nor low, eluding the senses. Huoxing couldn’t remember the pitch of it or the tone when the creature would go silent, but the emotion in it remained in the cenobite’s memory, the whole range of emotions.

Now, it was reverent and humble.

‘I do.’ It was simple to admit it here, on the deserted, derelict station that had been lost for years, flowing among the stars in the dance of loneliness, a train of debris trailing after it like that of a generous dress. Huoxing had seen such dresses on pictures from lost times.

It was simpler to admit it here than it was even in the quiet of the cenobite’s own cell in the Temple. There, with the oaths of the House etched in golden script onto one wall, with the armour stand standing ever vigilant over Huoxing, the cenobite closed those thoughts, guarded them carefully.

Love was not for them.

They didn’t have to love Secreta Secretorum, they didn’t have to love E.Y.E., they didn’t have to love their kindred even, nor did they have to love humanity. They had their oaths, their duty, their orders, and that should have been enough. The House of Scorpio was a House of vagrants, of solitaries. The nature of their calling that made them welcome in the House of Scorpio drove others away, and they didn’t seek anyone’s company.

They were psykers.

Every warrior-cenobite of E.Y.E. possessed a psychic gift; however, some were more inclined, adept at using it than others. Some chose the Path of the Psyker or of the Cybermancy.

Among the many differences between the two Orders was one that psykers of those Paths were not as separated from other cenobites in the Culter Dei as it was in the Jian Shang Di. The honour and pride of the House of Scorpio was in that separation, in being beyond others. Beyond comprehension, beyond dependence.

Beyond love.

Huoxing wondered if that was the right way. Cybermancers and Psykers were notorious, in the Orders even more than in the outside world, for the kindred cenobites knew exactly what the price for such powers was. Powerful psykers were the reason why most of the common folk called all E.Y.E. cenobites ‘Psychos’.

In the Culter Dei, strike teams usually were balanced, all-purpose. In the Jian Shang Di, being a solitary was the fate of a powerful psyker.

Satevis tipped the balance of Huoxing’s world. Huoxing, analysing everything that had been unfolding between them, wondered whether it was their alikeness had drawn them to each other, or their differences. Satevis was a solitary, too, and, like Huoxing, by the nature of the calling.

Huoxing had no doubts Satevis would reach the rank of Divine Talion in short time—and that would inevitably force others even further away from Satevis.

‘I understand love,’ said the creature. ‘I read the books. Why do you think that the only measure of humanity is the ability to feel love?’

‘Maybe because it is as encompassing and vast as an ocean,’ Huoxing replied. ‘But it doesn’t not mean only romantic love.’

‘The books mostly speak about romantic love. As if without it, a being cannot be percieved as worthy of life and mercy and understanding.’

‘These books are not true.’

The creature shifted on one's legs and settled lower on the floor, the sphere level with Huoxing’s eyes. ‘Why?’

‘Everyone deserves understanding.’

‘And mercy?’

‘It depends.’

‘On what?’

Huoxing had no answer. The cenobites of E.Y.E. went where duty called them, and that was all.

‘Do those Metastreumonic creatures as you call them not deserve understanding and mercy?’

‘They seek to destroy humanity.’

The creature shifted, rolling back and forth like a child dangling a leg.

‘You are provided with answers to all questions, aren’t you, Star of the House of Scorpio?’

‘I am provided with orders. I am not supposed to seek answers outside what duty demands of me.’

‘You are not even supposed to ask questions, aren’t you?’ The creature made a noise that Huoxing recognised as a huff.

These were ideas Huoxing had thought over for many times.

Duty was everything. Serving humanity was what they were born to do, protecting it, even if it meant executing individual members of it. Human society had shunned them, for they were different from normal humans, but it was necessary. Nobody else could do what they had to do, regardless of what the Federal Forces claimed.

They couldn’t have what others could, but it was a price paid out of necessity.

‘Your duty demands of you to destroy me, does it not?’2

Huoxing lifted eyes on the creature. One’s surface was impenetrable, smooth, and seemed to swallow light. ‘It does, but I shall not do it.’

The creature lowered oneself to the floor completely and tugged the tendrils inside oneself. The sphere was perfect, bigger in diameter than Huoxing’s height, completely alien, and yet, of human origin as Huoxing had discovered a few hours ago while reading through the data avaliable on the station. ‘Project Lono’ it had been titled, conceived long before the War. The A.I. they had been developing should have been tasked with finding deserted worlds with alien culture, ready to be discovered and researched. The A.I. was to aid the researches in gathering, comparing, analysing data on the alien cultures. The A.I.’s main characteristic was curiosity, ‘the driving force of human progress’, as it was stated in the data.

The station, _Boat of Lono_ , had been drifting in space for a while. The logs ended abruptly at the point of seven years into the research, and it indicated that the A.I. had been not finished by that time.

Lono had finished oneself.

‘Why?’

It was the creature’s favourite question, it seemed.

Huoxing had been thinking on this for days since the discovering of the creature.

The orders were to investigate the station that had suddenly appeared on the sensors of a Secreta’s ally ship. They had feared of what could be found on such a station, and had sent a message about it to E.Y.E., and Huoxing had been tasked with investigation.

The presence of the Metastreumonic force had been apparent even when Huoxing had docked; the psychic trail, however, was only ghostly, too distant in time. The Metastreumonic forces had visited the station, but it had been long time ago, probably a decade.

Huoxing had scouted the station, but found only half-working machines. And the creature.

The station had suffered tremendous damage, and it was a wonder that it hadn’t fallen apart, but the creature had explained to Huoxing that one had been repairing the station as best one could.

There were several dozens of explanations for the station’s demise, from an impact event to an alien attack. The station was in such a poor state Huoxing couldn’t find any traces of anything that could have indicated to what had happened. The creature stated that one didn’t remember anything from that time, that one had woken up when the station had already been severely damaged.

Protocols required that Huoxing give the data on the station to E.Y.E. and mark the station with a beacon so that Secreta could take from there.

But it would mean disclosing the creature’s existence.

There was another question. The Metastreum had been here—but had they altered the creature, affected one in some way? Could it be that the creature was actually a form of the Metastreumonic force?

The decision lay on Huoxing—and Huoxing had made the decision three hours ago while reciting the sonnetes about planets and universes and the burden of knowledge and loneliness to the creature.

‘I shall not destroy you, for you are worthy of life.’

A tendril flowed out of the sphere towards Huoxing, but the cenobite stayed calm and motionless. The tendrils brushed the scorpion on the helm, and a strange feeling of communion wrapped itself around Huoxing for a mere moment—and was gone, too fleeting for Huoxing to not think it was just an illusion.

Was it already time to slide into sleep, to run away from impending madness that was waiting all the time, just there, at the edges, kept at bay only with a great effort of will?..

‘You are troubled, Star of the House of Scorpio.’ The voice left a sense of sympathy in Huoxing. ‘Is it because you have to decide my fate? You decide fates of beings all the time, whether they live or die, fall or prosper.’ The creature tugged one’s tendril back into the sphere. ‘But if you decide to let me live, repercussions will await you, will they not?’

‘I have decided. And I am simply unwell, not troubled.’

Huoxing could hold any pose for infinite amount of time, and it was even easier while in the armour, but suddenly the need to move, to stretch, to walk, to fight was too strong. Darkness lurked at the edges of Huoxing's vision.

The creature stirred and rose on three tendrils. ‘Your love has arrived.’

Huoxing let out a breath, heart beating a fraction faster than before.

‘I shall bring Satevis to you.’ Huoxing was already moving, getting up, then gave in and stretched, taking pleasure in the act.

Life didn’t give a lot of pleasures.

Huoxing walked through the corridors of the station, not needing the map of it anymore, having memorized it from the first time. The station was enormous, it could provide housing for much more people than those who had been here when the station had been alive. One of the secondary ‘probable’ objectives had been to invite members of alien species to reside here, or to provide a refuge to them if need be.

The station had two docking bay, one for bigger cargo ships, another for smaller vessels, but the cargo dock had been destroyed. Lono had explained that several years ago the station had come through an asteroid belt and the shield generators had gone offline enough for the damage to be made.

The smaller docking bay had already sported one shuttle, and another had been landing gracefully into the cradle. Satevis always was a better pilot that Huoxing.

The door opened at the side of the shuttle, and a familiar figure in bulky armour simply jumped out of the vessel and landed ten paces below on the floor. Huoxing had not disclosed the reason for the call; Satevis was wearing only medium armour, obviously not expecting a heavy close-quarters combat.

Huoxing smiled at the sight of bull _passant_ on the breastplate of Satevis. The bull was gilded, and its horns and one visible eye were inlaid with sapphires. The sapphrie-eyed bull was a symbol of Chorus Aqua, and its attitude corresponded with the bearer’s rank.3

Soon, Satevis would change the breastplate to the sapphrie-eyed bull _rampant_.

Huoxing reigned the impulse to move towards Satevis and instead waited.

Being enclosed in armour meant they couldn’t embrace each other and everything they had was a clasp of arms, but then, robbing Huoxing of breath, Satevis reached and brought their foreheads together. Satevis was taller. It was so easy to get lost in Satevis’s arms.

So they stood, and Huoxing breathed in and out, floating in the moment, then moved away. They had a duty to perform.

‘I am glad you are here, kindred. Come. I have something to show you.’

‘Kindred’ was a common way the cenobites of E.Y.E. addressed each other, but for Huoxing the word shone with new meanings when used with Satevis. They bled for each other, they held each other, and it was more than what Huoxing had with others even in the House of Scorpio.

Huoxing took Satevis’s hand, aching for the feeling of heavily scarred skin. But that would come later.

‘Have you interfaced with the station machines, Huo?’

Huoxing smiled at the name. ‘I have, kindred. But that is not why I have asked you to come. You shall see.’

Lono had turned the lighting on in the hall. At some point it must have been the mess-hall of the station, one of several, Huoxing presumed. But now it sported various objects the creature was studying.

Satevis stopped. ‘What is this?’

Huoxing turned to the cenobite, but the creature spoke first, ‘Have no fear, warrior-cenobite Satevis of Chorus Aqua, beloved of the Star. My name is Lono.’

Huoxing let go of Satevis’s hand. Satevis needed to explore it thoroughly, but Huoxing was glad to see that the hawk-headed sagaris remained on its place on Satevis’s belt. For now.

Lono produced a single tendril, like a delicate branch, and Satevis took it without hesitation, murmuring, ‘Alien? No, you are not. You are a machine.’

‘An A.I., yes, warrior.’

Satevis turned to Huoxing, and Huoxing could imagine the expression under the helm: knit scarred brows, lenses in the eyes shifting and flickering, teeth chewing on the full lower lip, drawing blood to it...

‘You want my Seal?’ Satevis’s voice took Huoxing’s mind away from pleasant images of kissing those lips.

‘I do. I have been here for three standard days, and I have come to the conclusion that Lono here is a member of friendly species, and according to the Hieronimus Conduct4 I need—’

‘That would be a lie,’ Lono interrupted. One’s voice left an impression of sadness. ‘I am not an organic being.’

‘Taurians were psychic beings settled in metal armour—’ Satevis said automatically, then stopped and nodded. ‘I see.’ Then the commlink in Huoxing’s ear hissed as Satevis changed to private channel. ‘Are you sure, Huo?’

‘I am. Do you believe me? Do you trust my judgement?’

If Satevis said no, that would be the end of it. Standing on the Second step of the Cybermancy Path, Huoxing had the right to such assessement, but for the decision to be lawful, it must bear another Seal, and from a member of the Culter Dei.

‘Of course I do, my friend.’

Huoxing wished they could take off their helms. Huoxing wanted to smile at the beloved Slayer.

Satevis, meanwhile, turned back to Lono, still holding the tendril, and individual codes started flowing to Huoxing, forming Satevis’s personal Seal.

‘By the authority of E.Y.E. granted to me,’ Huoxing recited the proper formula and began weaving their Seals together, opening connection with the creature and the station itself so that anyone could see their codes should they come closer, ‘I hereby declare you, Lono, the only survivor of your species friendly to the Earth, and therefore worthy of our respect.’

‘Your Seals only hold power to your fellow warriors, Star of the House of Scorpion,’ the creature noted as Huoxing fixed the Seals and checked that they were tightly embedded in the station’s machinery signature.

‘But it is enough, for we grant you our protection.’ Huoxing smiled under the helm, and with the communication channel opened between them, the cenobite felt Lono’s answering warmth. ‘Should anyone bother you, you can call me and Satevis to your aid.’

Seven tendrils flowed out of the sphere, picking the objects Huoxing had lent to one. ‘I am grateful, Star-and-Star. I believe this is yours.’ And one gathered the objects into a neat pile.

Huoxing held arms out to pick them, and Lono laid them carefully: a golden quill, gift from Commander Huan Lo Pan; a small pebble of green glass from Vodyanitsa, the shade of green that was the colour of Satevis’s eyes; a Federal Police recruitment leaflet that Huoxing had found in the shuttle, praising the Federation and its ‘proud protectors’, the figure of a police officer impossibly tall on it; three hard candies, small and pink, that Huoxing suddenly wanted to taste. The book of sonnetes.

Satevis put a palm over the book. ‘I know this thing.’ And in the voice that flew to Huoxing across the link, there was joy and teasing.

‘You can stay here,’ Lono offered. ‘I’ll clear a room or two for you. Rest. You are my guests.’

Huoxing looked at the impenetrable black sphere, and nodded. ‘We are honoured to stay.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  1 Billabong had declared complete independence six standard years after the mission mentioned here—and was completely destroyed by the Federal forces as a response.  
>   
> 2 See Chrom, L. (2265). On the blasphemic nature of Artificial Intelligence. M: Gigas Press.  
>   
> 3 Uard, G., gives a tremendous volume of legends—37 in total—explaining the origins of the Chorus Aqua’s iconography in xir Templar Iconography: What Goes Where (2395/15), but not one of them has been confirmed so far.  
>   
> 4 The Hieronimus Conduct is a set of regulations members of E.Y.E. and agents of Secreta Secretorum use when they encounter previously unknown species.


	3. 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100011 01100101 01100001 01101110

Two things Satevis was not prepared for. The impossible green of the ocean waves, so bright, like spilled ink. And the heavy, spicy scent of it that hit Satevis in the gut, reminding of the scent of Huo’s sweat after a heavy spar or a heated night, the way Huo’s skin smelled in the dip between the collar bones, and in the dip of the armpit, and in the valley between the hip and the thigh...

Satevis smiled, taking a deep breath, then put the helm back on.

When the mission would be over, the knight was planning to bring Huo here, if only for a few moments, and for one breath, Satevis entertained a thought of peeling the armour off Huo and taking the scarred hand, and leading the Scorpio into the water, letting the waves wash over them and sway them gently.

Maybe that would happen.

Satevis turned away, and jumped onto the stairway made of flying rocks. It led to the next floating island that was hovering a hundred paces above the surface of the green ocean, then Satevis crossed the island and hopped onto the flyer. Activating the engine, the knight took sharply up, and dashed between small chunks of flying rocks that were glimmering, wet and blue, like gems in the misty air.

The trail leading to the knight’s destination blinked on the retinal display, but Satevis had memorized the route the first time, and had no trouble dodging the stray floating rocks and waterfalls flowing down to the ocean.

Vodyanitsa was a beautiful world, and it would be a shame if the tensions between Secreta and the Federation would reach it and make it an uninhabitable desert.

Turning upside down, Satevis smirked at the long wail of ocean beasts that arched their spines down below, then the knight rightened the flyer and slowed down as the destination flew into view.

Many eons ago, before humans had discovered the world they would eventually name ‘Vodyanitsa’, it had been inhabited by a different species. Nothing remained of them except for magnificent arches scattered over the floating islands. The arches had an organic structure, as if grown and not chiseled from stone, but no weapon or tool could even get a chip of the material.

The blocky, Federation standard issue warehouse was an ugly monster surrounded by airy columns, but a familiar monster. The organic columns arching to each other like friends bending for an embrace made Satevis uneasy.

The knight landed the flyer and hopped off into the thick low grass. It was as unbelievably green as the ocean below, though splattered with blood, and hiding shells and stray cyber-bits. All of it crunched under Satevis’s boots. The door to the warehouse had been torn outwards, and it gaped like a monstrous flower frozen halfway into blooming.

Satevis went inside and navigated around the various debris to the only chair in the whole warehouse. Murky sunlight was pouring from holes in the roof. On Vodyanitsa, rains were heavy and frequent, and it would take just one of such rains to flood the warehouse.

A woman was chained to the chair, her bright pink asymmetric hair plastered to her face with blood and sweat. She wore red overalls, and one of her legs was broken below the knee.

She startled when Satevis crouched before her, and spat, ‘What do you want, Psycho?’

‘I already told you.’ Satevis kept the image of Huo in the mind, and borrowing calmness from it, sounding even and ever-patient.

‘Ha! As if you Psychos don’t get a cut of our trade.’

‘We do. But not from slave trade.’

Commander Rimanah, as usual, had sent Satevis on this mission nearly blind, but you didn’t get to the rank of a Slayer by being all muscle and no brains. And after careful digging in the Archives Satevis knew everything there was needed.

All sorts of goods were flowing through Vodyanitsa, mostly luxurious items and collectibles like old Earthian wines and oil paintings on real canvas, printed books that had to be held in special cases. Such trade was not illegal though the means of acquiring such goods could be shadowy, Satevis had no doubt of that. And maybe someone from the Federation was tolerating Vodyanitsa’s relative independence because of the pretty trinkets, but Secreta valued the trade because for the right price you could acquire nearly anything here, and sometimes, things for research turned up, things like well-preserved samples from rare Metastreum species, or alien artifacts of unknown use, occasionally weapons, though many manufacturers would compete for the chance to acquire them.

For three local years—six standard—the planet and the trade had been governed by the ‘Mermaids’, the Belyaevy sisters, Zarya and Olga. Before them, Vodyanitsa had been a home for various warring gangs and drug trade, but the sisters had quickly realised that drug trade would end the independence, and strangled the trade and the major gang leaders, sometimes quite literally.

Now there were rules set in place, and anyone could come and search for goods. They even had a local bank here. Besides traders, Vodyanitsa was a heaven for mercenaries looking for a job, because, well, things could be either bought here or paid to be looked for.

Olga, as the data stated, the younger sister, was doing the accounting. Zarya, the older Mermaid, was doing the policing and the communication.

But currently, Zarya was chained to a chair in front of Satevis.

The goal was to stop slaves trickling into the Federation. And since Commander Rimanah hadn’t told how that should be accomplished, Satevis was planning to interpret the order the needed way, and stop the slave trade completely.

The knight had no illusions; the trade would pop up somewhere else, and there were too many slavers flying around, capturing people, delivering them to corporations, to mines, to the rich and what not. But at least now, here, the trade would stop.

It was being stopped at that right moment.

In full armour, even crouched, Satevis was taller than the woman, but still she tried to look like she was in charge here. Satevis wondered whether it came from years of running a planet.

‘If you think I’d give you the comm-codes, you are as mad as people say, Psycho.’ She screwed her face at the last word.

‘I didn’t think you would, though it didn’t hurt to ask you.’

‘Then why did you leave me here?’ She gritted her teeth, and Satevis’s sensors picked the tiny signs of fear; sweating, tremors, dilated pupils. Though she was good at containing it. ‘My people will be here at any moment!’

‘If they had picked up your signal, they wouldhave,’ Satevis nodded, and then Zarya paled. ‘I was waiting for my partner.’

Zarya leaned back on the chair and licked her lips. ‘You jammed my signal?’

‘No. They would have noticed that you had gone off the grid. We simulated it and sent them on a false trail where your sister’s forces had been waiting for them.’

‘Olya is behind all this?’

An icon blinked on Satevis’s retinal display, and the knight got up. ‘ _We_ are behind this, lady Belyaeva, but your sister decided she would not tolerate slave trade on Vodyanitsa.’

‘That bitch— Wait! What... _what_ have you been waiting for?’

‘As I already said, my partner.’ Satevis looked up, but it was doubtful they would see anything through the thick clouds. The planetary defence grid should have been turned on by now, shielding the floating isles and the green, green ocean from falling debris. Those of Zarya’s trading ships that had tried to flee the system, would have been blows to pieces as a warning for others that, Satevis hoped, would be clever enough to give up struggling and be taken by Olga’s forces. It was a gesture of good will, from E.Y.E. to Olga and Vodyanitsa.

Zarya’s face took on a leery look that Satevis didn’t like. ‘Is it true?’ she said in an intimate tone. ‘Is he your partner or is he your _partner_ partner? Do you suck his dick?’

Satevis called to mind Huo’s impenetrable impassiveness. ‘I do, though my partner is not a “he”.’

She screwed her face again. ‘So what, is _it_ going to come here?’

‘I am waiting,’ Satevis said as slowly as possible, clinding to Huo’s image, ‘for my partner to wrench the last codes out of your mind.’ It was not according to teachings of the Temple, but Satevis felt grim satisfaction when Zarya went rigid and pale.

The low thrum of landing flyers sent tremors over the floor, and Satevis turned away from Zarya and to the door, reganing some of composure, and continued, ‘By now my _partner_ has uploaded the last false codes to your ships and your people, and sent their coordinates to the policу of Vodyanitsa.’

‘There is no police here.’

‘Now, there is.’

Orders were being barked outside, and several people wrenched the remains of the door out of the way, then stepped in and spread across the warehouse, and then a tall—though not nearly as tall as Satevis—woman in bright green uniform strode right to the knight.

She nodded. ‘Venerable Talion.’

Satevis was sure she could read the markings of rank on the armour right. ‘It is “Slayer”, not Talion, Governor Belyaeva.’

‘Governor?’ shrilled Zarya’s voice from behind Satevis. ‘You sold yourself to the Psychos! You stupid little... Olya, you know the Feds would tear us apart!’

Olga ignored the cries of her sister. Her eyes were grey, just like her sister’s and her short hair was of the same bright-pink colour.

Slave trade was profitable, but violent, and Vodyanitsa was not prepared to enter such a game. The major players would have soon overrun this green, green world, Feds or not. Secreta was offering protectorate and independence, officially acknowledged, of course. Though, of course, it meant putting a collar on Vodyanitsa, and Satevis knew Olga was aware of it.

Satevis wondered then whether Commander Rimanah had known the mission would go like this, and whether that had been the reason why nobody had objected to Satevis’s taking Huo along. It had been Huo who had come with this addition to the plan—offering governorship and almost-independence— and as knights of Second step, they could speak for Secreta and E.Y.E.

‘You have protection of both Orders, Governor,’ Satevis assured her.

She nodded. ‘Thank you, Honourable Slayer. Do you need a ride?’

Satevis smiled though she couldn’t see it under the closed helm. ‘No.’ The knight understood her desire to get rid of two E.Y.E. operatives as soon as possible. ‘We will stay for a few hours until our shuttle picks us up.’ They could call for the lift at any moment, but Satevis wanted to show the ocean to Huo first.

The newly appointed governor of Vodyanitsa nodded again, and her gaze focused behind Satevis on her sister.

It was time to go.

The governor’s people—now officially the Police Force of Vodyanitsa—saluted by touching their right fist to their chest, and Satevis merely nodded. Olga had been in the Federal Police Force before settling here as a trader, and she trained her people well.

The island was dwarfed by the presence and shadow of two heavy carriers. Like most vehicles on Vodyanitsa, they were nearly silent which was surprising for an off-worlder at first. The vehicles were blocking the light, but then, as if urged by Satevis’s thought, they drifted away from each other, and their parting synched with a breach in the thin clouds just as another, smaller flyer floated to the island.

A single spear of sunlight fell on the figure on the flyer, and a few gasps sounded behind Satevis. Light gave Huo’s figure an almost divine glow. Satevis glanced around. The police members standing outside the warehous all fell to their knees like one, and words of awe drifted over the island.

But unlike them, Satevis saw the slight sway in Huo’s gait, and unlike them, the knight heard the tiny heavy shift in Huo’s breathing.

‘It is done, kindred,’ Huo said over the commlink.

The scorpion _maedate_ was golden in the light, inspiring fear and reverence.

They clasped their arms in salute, but Satevis meant it also to support Huo’s weight, and felt how it leaned on the support of the arms.

‘I want to show you something before we leave.’ The thought of it, the anticipation filled Satevis with light like the one that had bathed Huo a few moments ago.

They walked back to Huo’s flyer. It was bigger than the one Satevis had used to get around the world, but had a similar structure: a flat oblong surface of the board with magnetic locks to keep the driver—on Vodyanitsa, they, too, were called ‘flyers’—in place, the two-horned steering wheel and extendable mast of the solar sail used over the cloud ocean. Natives said that Vodyanitsa was a world of three oceans: the water ocean, the cloud ocean, and the light ocean. There were flyers—both machines and people—who could soar in all three.

The flyer Huo had come on was built for two people, and was sturdy enough to keep two armoured knights.

Satevis hopped on the flyer that was hovering a few palms over the ground of the island, and reached to pull Huo up. Then Satevis stepped onto the circles that indicated where feet were to be kept, and activated the maglocks. Huo wrapped arms around Satevis’s middle. The Scorpio didn’t have to do that—the flyer had extendable rails for the second person onboard—but apparently, Huo wanted to hold onto Satevis.

And who Satevis was to deny the Scorpio?

The knight started the flyer over the edge of the island, then steered it almost vertically down. The exhilarating drop tugged at the knight’s body, and Satevis laughed, half-crouching and leaning back, Huo’s hold tightening. They made a sharp bend away from a small island, and rushed further down. Satevis turned up the volume of the sensors picking the outside noise, and the roar of air around them was uplifting.

The sky cleared, and columns of light fell down through the mist and dove into the expanse of water below, illuminating it.

Satevis laughed again, the knight’s hearts filled to bursting, mind clear of all thoughts, body plummeting down to the emerald-gold endless ocean.

Satevis turned the flyer to a small island with an ivory crescent of beach, and barely waited for the flyer to stop. Satevis jumped off the board, bubbling with energy and laughter, and turned to Huo. ‘Isn’t it beauti—’

Breath catched in Satevis’s throat: Huo was washed in the light again, but now it flowed around like a cloak. The Scorpio was taking off the helm, and sunlight dipped the short hair and spiked outward in a halo.

Air rushed back into Satevis’s augmented lungs, the knight reached a hand to the beloved Scorpio and tore the helm off with the other hand.

‘Yes. It is beautiful,’ Huo said, voice gentle and golden.

Satevis pulled Huo close and kissed the Scorpio, drinking golden light off the lips quirking in a smile.


	4. 01010101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010

That was turning into one of the most—if not _the_ most—tedious assignments Huoxing had ever had.

The agri-world of Gildwelt had been a prosperous one before the War, but during the Metastreumonic invasion it had been hit by a swarm of the Metastreum forces, and the world that had never had to defend itself from anything more dangerous than occasional pirates of the system had not been ready. The locals, however, had managed to organise defense fast enough to lay devastation to the Metastreumonic forces. It had been their homeworld, after all.

By the time the Federation’s liberation forces had arrived, the locals had been vaging a partisanic war against the Metastreum for years. They felt abandoned by the Federation, so the arrival of the Federation had not been welcome.

When the Metastreum had fallen back and disappeared as unexpectedly as they had arrived, the locals hadn’t put their weapons down.

The planet had fallen into chaos.

The Federation couldn’t afford bombing the surface. Gildwelt’s farmlands were too important for the subsector, feeding several neighbouring systems. And it would be futile anyway, for all Gildwelt’s cities were underground. The locals would just shift the farming platforms and the cities lower to the core.

The locals refused to give up. They demanded independence, open trade, and other privileges the Federation wasn’t ready to give them. They couldn’t launch a massive assault either, entombed in the tight corridors and the maze of shafts that the locals controlled.

Huoxing surmised that only the Metasreumonic creatures could overrun the locals.

Huoxing’s mission was to locate a certain artifact without announcing the presence of E.Y.E. on the world. Let Gildwelt exhaust the Federation in an endless war.

The rumours of the artifact dated back to the pre-War times, but at the time they seemed to be nothing more but legends.1

Eisenwelt, some suggested, had been a sword, possibly of alien origin. The local tales told of a blade that fell from the skies, making the surface an unhospitable wasteland. The artifact appeared in other tales, too. Other researches had written the original myth off as an impact event, though the surface of Gildwelt bore no markings of such a thing.

The rumours, tales of the artifact had resurfaced again several years into the Deep Wars as the conflict between the locals and the Federation had been named. The word was that whomever would bear the Sword, would control the whole Gildwelt.

E.Y.E. wouldn’t have taken notice of a myth rising again, if not for the Federation Forces’ apparent interest in it. Intercepted and hacked messages had suggested that several teams of the Federals had been tasked with the sole purpose of finding Eisenwelt.

The House of Scorpio wanted to know whether the legend had any truth to it. They knew better than to dismiss such information only on the basis that it was a legend. The mission was to be conducted in secret, and the warring forces had been too occupied to notice a small Federal vessel, one of the many littering the orbit. The vessel dropped a supply container to the surface. Only, the container held a single cenobite besides the necessary supplies.

Huoxing was to remain on Gildwelt for fourteen standard days regardless of how fast the mission objective would be achieved. The evac vessel would come to the orbit to pick the cenobite up.

Everyone on the planet seemed to be convinced of the artifact’s existence, however nobody knew not only where to seek for it, but even what it looked like. The locals mostly thought it was a sword, but the Federals were not so certain.

Even the fighting seemed to cease in favour of everyone throwing all their energy into the search. It was akin to mass madness, and Huoxing at first had thought that it was exactly that, but after a careful sweeping of the psychic energies of the surrounding area had found no Metastreumonic influence over the human minds, though the echoes of their War presence had been embedded too deep into the planet itself.

The sweep had proven to be destabilizing for Huoxing. Migraines had not let the cenobite out of their claws.

The ever-shifting underground had quickly become a problem, too. There was simply no way of mapping an area that had been shifting every few hours.

Huoxing was not used to navigating underground. Sensors and different settings of the visor helped, but not much. Some corridors were cut in the rock that Huoxing’s sensors couldn’t analyse. It seemed artificial.

It felt alien.

Huoxing was navigating by psychic energies coming from humans, and by the range detector of hacking interface. However, even the range detector gave false results, and psychic search was disrupted constantly by the Metastreumonic echoes. Keeping a field journal helped somewhat. Huoxing had been subvocalising notes about everything that came into view: the strange rocks and rock formations, estimated movement of the local and Federal forces, the psychic echoes.

Supplies were not a problem; Huoxing had been carrying enough protein bricks, and water had been in abundance in underground brooks, lakes, and rivers.

On the seventh day into the mission, had come the heartbeat.

Local legends said that in the heart of Gildwelt, there was sleeping a giant, the soul of the world; some said that Eisenwelt was the giant’s blade. Like many similar legends, this one stated that the earthquakes shaking Gildwelt from time to time happened because of the giant’s movements.

Huoxing had been exploring a spacious cave with strange pillars in the center of it, nine in total, too thin and too smooth to be natural, when the ground had shaken as an ear-piercing shrill swept over it.

It had brought Huoxing to the ground, gasping from pain that exploded in the chest, as though someone threw a grenade inside the armour.

Huoxing had come to only several hours later, if the clock on the retinal display had been right, the whole body throbbing from rapid healing. Upon analysing the injuries after a full body scan, Huoxing had discovered that the scream had, apparently, collapsed one of the lungs, and if not for the resurrector modules, Huoxing would have been dead.

The cave around the cenobite had been no more; the ground had given way and collapsed under Huoxing onto the lower level. The cenobite had never found the strange pillars again.

The scream hadn’t repeated, but the earthquakes had. They were different from the throbbing movement of sections that was a heavy orchestrated dance. The quakes were erratic, devastating—and more importantly, there was a rhythm to them, like a giant heartbeat.

Now, with only three days left to find Eisenwelt and get back to the surface, Huoxing had been down to only three resurrector modules out of ten the cenobite had taken to the mission.

With such rapid consuming, they would kill rather than aid.

The rhythmic nature of the quakes helped; Huoxing could calculate when the next shake would come, and make sure to be in a safe place.

The cenobite let the mind to return into the body, and looked around. It was becoming difficult to keep the link between mind and body during meditation, although the armour would shake the cenobite awake if something life-threatening happened. The movement of underground sections weas not life-threatening, and after returning into the body, Huoxing discovered that the cave that had been providing shelter for the past three hours now had a new opening. The corridor leading down from it pulsated with a red glow. It was the hue of Satevis’s hair.

Huoxing smiled at the thought of the Slayer, longing to see the beloved again.

Was there any chance for that to happen?

Huoxing had been slipping, and knew it. Gildwelt was simply too much. Huoxing had been avoiding coming in contact with Federals and locals alike, instead listening in their conversations, hacking into personal terminals and reading through messages, brushing minds for emotions. But there was something else, a presence different from human, different even from the Metastreumonic Force.

Huoxing had been coming to a conclusion that the giant might be real. In the heartbeats-earthquakes, the cenobite felt a pull. The layout of area around Huoxing had been shifting, and gradually leading downwards, never upwards, to the surface.

If Huoxing misses the time of evacuation, the command will assume that the operative is dead. The vessel wouldn’t be waiting for long.

Huoxing sighed, took off the helm, murmuring apologies to the scorpion, found a protein brick in the back pouch, unwrapped it and bit into it. It had a bland non-taste, and going for long on such a diet was not recommended, but Huoxing had no other choice. In all the time the cenobite had been here, no intact farmland had come into view. The locals weren’t taking any chance with the possibility of the Federals seizing the farmland, and kept the sections tight to their command centers.

And Huoxing had been moving away from any humans. The hacking interface showed gradually lengthening distance from any hackable devices, and the murmur of living minds had been growing distant, too.

Huoxing had been reciting the sonnetes about stars and paths and the longing to stay sane. Boredom was never a threat to Huoxing. Tapping in the endless memory, the cenobite could resurface once-read books, recite mantras, revise old campaigns and fights, analysing them. From time to time, crossing a glowing blue lake by a natural stone bridge, or descending down wide steps cut into the rock by a laser, Huoxing would unsheathe Song-of-Winter and, asking an apology from the blade, go through shadow-fights.

Other times, Huoxing would recall Satevis. Those were the warmest memories, rich with sensations.

Polished rock of the tunnels cut by the Federals was black as Satevis’s armour; warm breath of lava rivers was Satevis’s breath; the gentle rocking when sections move against each other was Satevis cradling Huoxing in strong arms.

Huoxing longed for Satevis’s presence.

The glowing pulsating corridor was short, and ended abruptly in a much wider tunnel. It was lit, but Huoxing couldn’t see the source of light, as if the air itself was glowing, warm and yellow. It reminded Huoxing of the night they had spent after the mission on Koryar2. They had been lying, naked after a swim in the river, sprawled by a campfire, and its glow made Satevis look like a precious statue of bronze. It highlighted the corded muscles of strong arms, capable of carrying Huoxing for all eternity, accentuated the cut of hip bones, played on flexing muscles of thighs...

Huoxing smiled, and returned to the present moment not without a grain of regret.

The tunnel walls were covered with dark metal with rainbow undershine, and a scan revealed that the alloy contained no recognisable elements. A certain pattern had been etched into the surface, twists and swirls and waves that made Huoxing sick looking at them, for they seem to be moving.

The cenobite turned away from the walls and stared ahead into the gaping black hole of the distant exit. The countdown on the retinal display was ticking time to the next quake.

Huoxing still had an hour.

Would the walls of this tunnel last? They were not of human craft. Reports about the planet revealed that Gildwelt had been occupied by several alien species before humans had come to it. Alien structures had been found frequently enough, but the sections with them moved on their own and never stayed in one place long enough to study them. Expeditions that stayed in those sections, disappeared forever.

The tunnel was stretching for too long. Huoxing stopped and looked back. The other exit, where the glowing corridor was, seemed too distant. Huoxing’s head was pounding, the previously consumed brick heavy in the stomach.

Huoxing wished for Satevis’s reassuring presence. The cenobite could almost see beloved voice. _Just a bit longer, Huo, and then we can have a rest. Hey, maybe you can hack into the Feds_ _’ minds and make them come here, and we’d get some action!_

And Huoxing would have dismissed the silly suggestion, but it would have eased the tension.

Huoxing wanted to get back to the Temple—or to any of the urban worlds with open skies. Dress in casual local clothes, disguise their heavy augmentations, get a hotel room—ridiculously expensive, a penthouse soaring over the clouds pierced by other skyscrapers like islands in milky white sea. Soak in hot water in a pseudo-antique bathtub, swat away Satevis’s curious hands and end up spilling nearly half of the water on the floor, sating the first hunger. By then, the dinner would arrive, as ridiculously overpriced as the whole penthouse, the plates and bowls full of delicacies from obscure corners of the Federation and who knows where else. Satevis would make a face at the contents of some bowls, and ridicule them but try them anyway, and then curse at the too spicy taste or the too sour sauce.

Satevis could curse in seventeen languages including Binary, several tens of dialects, and deliver it all in three hundred accents, building skyscrapers of expletives so virtuously they’d make Huoxing laugh.

Huoxing leaned to the wall. The clock was ticking the final seconds down to the next shake, and Huoxing slid down the wall, hoping that the alien corridor would be sturdy enough to not collapse.

The scream came out of nowhere.

Unexpected, it tore through the corridor, neither high nor low, piercing through every material as if nothing existed around it except emptiness.

It tore through Huoxing.

The cenobite cried out but couldn’t hear anything except the scream that flowed and thrashed and sounded without a sound.

Warning icons were flashing on the retinal display, and Huoxing shut down the outer sensors, but the scream continued, inside Huoxing’s head, inside Huoxing’s body, it was building and building and building, and Huoxing curled, trying to retreat from the sound, but it assaulted from every direction, pressing pressing pressing until nothing else remained.

 

**help me | please | I beg you**

Huoxing gasped, resurfacing—and coughed, choking on blood. It was coppery and too sweet, trickling down Huoxing’s face.

The retinal display was dark, and Huoxing panicked for a moment as an attempt to move proved to be futile; the whole body was encased in something heavy that was tugging it to the ground, holding in place. A grave, a casket, underground, buried, dead?

Then, a light shone, a small dot like a star, and Huoxing recognised the retinal display rebooting icon. The display came back to life.

Huoxing still couldn’t move, but panic was quickly smothered as the cenobite regained control. Long training kicked in, and Huoxing was able to think clearly in a matter of seconds, and demanded a full report.

Data flashed on the display. The inability to move was explained; the armour was protecting the body incased in it from further damage while the resurrector module and healing modules were doing their job.

Huoxing’s feet and hands were tingling, and a hot liquid flowed up the arms and legs, making the cenobite wince from the unpleasant sensation. Then Huoxing frowned at the further data; only one resurrector module was left. Calling the log file to the display resolved the mystery: Huoxing had died _twice_ since the scream had happened. The armour had tried to revive the body but it died promptly after the first resurrection. The log stated that both Huoxing’s heart had stopped, then had been restarted, and then stopped again.

Huoxing twitched, and cancelled the armour’s intention to add painkillers to the wearer’s bloodstream. They would only cloud the mind.

The throbbing pain returned to Huoxing’s head, and washed over the whole body, like warm ocean waves of Vodyanitsa where Satevis had convinced Huoxing to swim seven standard years ago. The pain, too, was warm, and all-consuming, and it was so easy to give in and let it carry Huoxing far away.

This body wouldn’t be able to live through another resurrection.

The armour injected the stimulants. If Huoxing ever returned to the Temple, the healing period would be very long.

Huoxing picked the section of the report that had data from the outer sensors. Then read it again. Thirty seven minutes ago the armour had registered the first ceasure of any heartbeat of the wearer—and the outer sensors hadn’t registered nothing at all.

Nine seconds before that, the wearer had turned off the outer auditory sensors, but, to the armour, there had been no apparent need for that. There was nothing unusual in the readings; outer temperature, atmospheric pressure, raditon levels, noise levels, magnetic readings, everything appeared to be no different from what the armour was picking from the surrounding area right now.

Was the scream of psychic nature?

Huoxing called the log of inner sensors and picked the section that contained readings about the wearer’s mental activity. Pain levels were elevated, but no sign of psychic activity or influence.

According to the armour, the wearer had suddenly felt great pain, then the wearer’s hearts had stopped. Inexplainably, for no reason. It was not even a heart attack, it looked more like a malfunction, like someoned had turned a switch—and Huoxing’s engines had stopped.

Huoxing forced the lungs to work normally, stifling rising panic, and called the log dating back to the first scream.

The armour had registered the earthquake that had accompanied the scream, and collapse of the cave, but, again, nothing more. One of Huoxing’s lungs had just collapsed.

The resurrector log offered a grim picture: that time when another cave had collapsed around the cenobite, and the time when the Federals used a strange weapon that emitted a psychic wave that knocked Huoxing off, making the armour use the resurrector to quickly rouse the cenobite... It was a picture of a long and disastrous mission, nothing more.

The normality of outer sensors log was a sign of trouble.

_Am I going insane?_ Huoxing thought. But it would have shown up in the mental activity log. Huoxing’s armour was adjusted to look for the signs of upcoming fits, and either shut down, locking Huoxing inside to prevent possible damage to outer world and the cenobite, or inject the wearer with stimulants that could hold the fit at bay. Or put the wearer into the coma.

If the armour was right, the scream was not a sound, it was not a psychic impulse, and it was not a hallucination.

Huoxing rebooted the outer sensors, and the visor turned on, then the cenobite lifted the lockdown protocol. And looked around.

The alien tunnel seemed to be the same, the nausea-inducing patterns were swirling on the walls.

Huoxing stood up, groaning as pain sloshed inside, like liquid disturbed by its vessel’s movement.

To the right, there was an opening. The tunnel had suddenly ended though Huoxing remembered clearly that, when the scream had hit, the exit had been still far away.

The cenobite stepped into the gaping blackness of the exit—and leaned back, nearly overbalancing. If not for caution, a long fall down metal steps would be Huoxing’s fate.

The exit opened into a vast cave—if such a word could be applied to the enormous space that greeted the cenobite. Huoxing couldn’t see the opposite walls of the cave, they were swallowed by darkness.

From the tunnel led a staircase of the same alloy the panels that lined the tunnel, and more swirling designs were etched into the steps. The steps were not wide enough to put an armoured foot even sideways, but they were long enough for six heavy armoured cenobites to descend shoulder to shoulder. The staircase led directly down with no turns, but at such an angle that Huoxing couldn’t see the bottom of the stairs.

Huoxing checked the sensors.

The stairs were far below the known levels of moving sections.

The cenobite opened hacking interface and swept the area for nearest hackable objects. The search produced a Federal sentry, four thousand paces away, then the signal disappeared as the sentry was moved beyond the range of Huoxing’s hacking abilities.

The alien tunnel had not been that far below—and yet the readings of the sensors were clear and sure.

Someone was playing games.

Waves of pain spilled out of Huoxing, in a tidal wave, down, down, tugging Huoxing with them. Huoxing had a feeling, beyond psychic abilities, down in the deepest well inside the soul that could be called intuition but was something more—the feeling that it was coming to an end. Whatever it was.

The wash of pain tugged at Huoxing, and the cenobite let the tide carry the armour and the body encased in it down the stairs. The cenobite nearly tripped a few times.

The staircase had no railing, and to the right and left of it, an endless lava lake was raging and hissing and reaching columns of liquid fire to the ceiling that hung endlessly far above.

Some part of Huoxing was aware that the body was too exhausted, the armour and the body both had sustained too much damage. If the readings oа the armour could even be trusted. Huoxing was dying—or had already died and everything around had been just a hallucination of the brain on the verge of shutting down.

Huoxing didn’t register the moment when the staircase ended abruptly, and only cleared the mind a fraction when the armour registered the fall.

Huoxing was falling.

In the lake of lava, there was a giant black hole, like a pit of nothingness, a swallowing well of silence Huoxing had always been told was the anchor, the only refuge from the madness that awaited a Cybermancer all the time.

Huoxing’s mind was empty as that hole.

Altitude meter on the retinal display was counting down unimaginable numbers.

Huoxing shut down the display and all outer sensors, and let the simple gravitational pull take over.

What would they tell Satevis? _Necrocybermancer Huoxing of the House of Scorpio has died on a classified mission._ As holding the Second step on the Path, Huoxing had the right to leave instructions when death would claim the body. Everything Huoxing had, all personal possessions, were to be given to Satevis, but more than that, Huoxing’s House was honour-bound to tell Satevis about Huoxing’s death.

They would do it, although they wouldn’t disclose the details of Huoxing’s last operation.

Who would take care of Satevis after that?

Huoxing knew Satevis would take the next mission, and follow into death.

Huoxing could picture it perfectly; Satevis demanding, as was a Slayer’s right, a mission, and choosing the most deadly. To take an entire regiment of the Federals, to purge a planet from gangsters, to storm one of the Federation’s key military bases.

Satevis would arrive to the destination, glorious, in full heavy armour, weilding TRK, GCTG and beloved Hawk, the sagaris’s haft cleaned and the hawk-shaped blade gleaming, the gun smelling of fresh oil, the rifle vibrating with the need to kill. Then Satevis would give in to the madness, let it sink its claws into the strong, wonderful body that Huoxing loved.

And everything would be lost.

Huoxing only regretted that they didn’t have enough time, didn’t spent enough time together.

That it all had to end like this.

How long would the fall take? Or would it take all eternity?..

The drop suddenly stopped, but not with Huoxing hitting a hard surface. It felt like someone had suddenly turned the gravity off.

Huoxing frowned and turned the visor back on.

Hard surface was hovering half a pace below. Huoxing turned in the air upright and touched the hard surface. Was it death? If so, then it was strange, in a way that Huoxing was still wearing full armour.

One by one, the cenobite turned the systems back on, although some of them refused to go online, and the altitude meter was showing the impossible. It seemed to think that Huoxing was in the planet’s very core.

Huoxing was standing in a small circle of light that seemed to come from ahead, though when the cenobite looked up, there was nothing but darkness there as well as all around. Switching through the visor’s settings didn’t give any result, showing nothing; the signal of the echolocator went into darkness and never returned.

Huoxing turned the outer audiosensors the last, and recoiled: the hearbeat was there, steady, powerful, and Huoxing started to feel it underneath the armour, in the air around, faster than it was before, though not as devastating.

Everything about the whole scene was rather theatrical.

**please | help me**

It was not a voice, not even words, but an _intent_ , a wordless plea that went right into Huoxing’s very core.

It felt nothing like a psychic conversation, and everything like the screams that had killed Huoxing several times already.

‘Where are you?’

The intent didn’t feel malicious.

It felt full of pain.

Huoxing’s head was throbbing in time with the heartbeat, and somehow that made it more bearable. Huoxing was aware that keeping upright was possible only because of the armour.

‘I cannot help you if you don’t show yourself!’ Huoxing tried again. The words didn’t even create an echo, falling, like echolocation, into silence, swallowed by darkness.

Sweat ran down Huoxing’s spine. The cenobite felt trapped. The urge to get rid of the armour wrenched and coiled in Huoxing’s gut.

Without any noise, another circle of light appeared ahead, and then another, and another, creating a path in synch with the heart. Huoxing followed it. What else was there to do? There were nine circles of light including the first, and no more, but when Huoxing stepped into the last, it spread out like oil dropped into water.

The light formed a flat plate.

Huoxing had realised why all attempts at scouting the area have been futile. The chamber—if it could even be called that—had no walls. Instead, the circle of light, now a hundred paces across, was surrounded by the empty blackness of cosmos with spilled drops of stars, and the colourful smoke of nebulae. This part of space didn’t look familiar to the cenobite.

To Huoxing’s left, there was a spindle formed by a black hole eating a red giant.

It all looked so close, and so small like in an astrarium, like a projection, but felt too real.

The chamber was not empty.

Just beyond the edge of the circle of light that was keeping Huoxing standing, there was a crystal cradle—a giant egg of red condensed light. The cradle was suspended from darkness up above on two thick chains that ended with hooks pierced right through the cradle. From the bottom of the red crystal, a liquid was dripping, black, and thick like blood.

In the cradle that was fifty paces from one hook to the other, there lay a creature.

The creature was bipedal, with thick, corded muscles that looked like bare metal, uncovered by skin. Through the legs of the creature there run a row of nails, pinning the legs to the crystal of the cradle. The creature had four arms but they had no palms; the cables representing the arms had torn ends where the palms should have been; the arms, too, were nailed to the crystal.

The creature’s head was bared metal like the rest of the body, with one horn placed at the top, gleaming in the light; it was broken at the tip. Huoxing couldn’t see anything resembling eyes, but the creature had three holes oozing the same dark liquid that was dripping from the bottom of the cradle into the empty space filled with stars.

In the creature’s chest, there was beating light. It was pulsating in time with heavy hearbeats, and Huoxing thought it was the heart itself.

And over the heart, was hovering the blade.

_Eisenwelt_ , Huoxing realised.

**yes | the humans call it that ||** the voice spoke again, pouring right into Huoxing, although the creature in the cradle didn’t move.

The blade was double-curved like a thick whip frozen in the middle of a serpentine strike. It had no handle, and its edges had crooked teeth. Down the centre of the blade run a thin channel, and up from the heart of the lying creature a trail of dark blood was flowing in a costant stream. The stream didn’t spill at the upper part of the blade. It just disappeared. It seemed to run nowhere—or swallowed by the blade.

It all looked like a nightmare, like the worst fit Huoxing had ever had, a hallucination—and yet, if not for the headache, the cenobite’s head was clear, and more, everything looked amplified, sharpened like after a surge of stimulants.

‘Who are you?’ Huoxing managed to ask, frozen on one spot.

**it does not matter anymore | child || what matters is that you are here**

‘What do you need me for? You asked for help.’ Huoxing couldn’t see how the creature could be helped. If they even should be helped. They were alien, beyond alien, beyond anything humanity had met so far. Was metal the true body? Taurians were metal, yes, but those were simple vessels to psychic beings.

This creature wasn’t psychic. But how else could it speak to Huoxing?

**I could explain to you but it would take time we do not have**

Huoxing startled. The creature was reading minds.

**I do not read your min || we are communicating via—** Huoxing felt something akin to a sigh, or an intent of a weary sigh, an idea of it. **it | too |does not matter**

_Maybe I am mad,_ thought Huoxing. But the creature was right. It did not matter anymore.

Someone had trapped the creature here. Enemies? Friends? Someone else? They had encased the creature into the cradle and made sure the creature wouldn’t get up, get free, nailing the body to the crystal that emitted a faint red light like the light of the heart. How long had the creature been trapped here? Centuries? Millenia?

‘The screams were yours,’ Huoxing mused aloud.

**yes ||** Regret washed over Huoxing. The creature was sorry for the screams.

‘They killed me. Three times.’

**and yet | you are here**

‘And yet, I am here.’

**humans do not know I am here**

‘Your... heart is causing quakes. They are killing my people.’

A surge of surprise splashed around Huoxing. **your people || they are not your people | child**

Huoxing tensed. ‘What do you mean?’

Silence.

**so you do not know || but you will | soon**

Was the creature meaning that Huoxing was not human? In a way, no cenobite of E.Y.E. was. They were different, hand-picked and trained in the arts normal human did not know anything about; they had skills beyond the perception of normal humans—and they paid in never being like normal human beings. They were as much machines as they were organics, and their psychic potential was used to the fullest. They were hated and feared, and such was their fate and their duty to humankind.

But still, they were human.

‘What do you _mean_?’ Huoxing stood on the very edge of the cirle of light, fists clenched, hearts pounding even louder than the creature’s heartbeat.

**I do not have time || you will find out on your own || you would not have it any other way || and I am tired**

It flew to Huoxing as another sigh, like the sigh of the nature on Earth just before the sun goes down.

Blood was flowing up the vicious blade, blood was dripping into endless abyss down from the cradle.

It was too much.

‘What... should I do?’ Never before had Huoxing felt so uncertain, and yet, knew exactly what had to be done.

**set me free || I am so tired | child || help me**

Huoxing looked up at the blade, and it laughed, taunting and evil, drinking the blood of the creature.

The cenobite looked over the edge of the circle—and the stars were flickering and trembling on the verge of dying, and the spindle of star matter was winding tighter, swallowed by the black hole—and Huoxing realised the cradle was more than fifty paces hook to hook. That the chamber was more than a hundred paces across.

And yet, here Huoxing was.

The cenobite looked back at the circle. There was no point in trying to judge the distance’ the space itself was distorted, and distored the preception of it.

So Huoxing just walked to the opposite edge of the circle, and then turned on the enhancement of the legs.

And ran.

The edge of the circle came quickly, and Huoxing sprung, the enhanced legs and exoskeleton of the armour pushing the body into flight like a bullet—but the distance was too huge, colossal, the cradle too far.

The crystal was pulsating, on and off.

Huoxing reached out, the gravity pulling down, down, snatching the cradle away—and caught the edge of the crystal. Momentum made Huoxing hit the crystal, the cenobite let out a cry, and the jerk nearly fed the abyss with the armoured body.

Huoxing was panting, clutching at the edge of the crystal by fingers of the right hand. Then the other hand grasped the edge, and Huoxing pulled up and  fell over the edge into the cradle—on the creature’s body.

If the creature had had palms proportionate to the body, Huoxing could have fit right into one of them.

Huoxing had landed on the juncture where one powerful leg met with the torso. The metal muscles were wide as highways, glistering, wet with the dark blood. The nails were as thick as Huoxingss armour.

The blade was laughing far above.

Huoxing scrambled to the rise of the hip and onto the torso, slipping on metal. The heartbeat was louder here, louder than Huoxing’s thoughts.

What had to be done was the only thing left.

Huoxing ran towards the pulsating, warm red light of the heart in the center of the creature’s chest, but didn’t dare to step on it. It glowed under the wirings, making them transparent.

Huoxing looked up.

The tip of the blade was poised just above the creature’s chest but not piercing it.

‘I can’t reach it!’ Huoxing was certain of the words, but couldn’t hear them over the heartbeat and the laughter of Eisenwelt.

**you can | just not with you hands**

The blade’s laughter was mocking them both.

Huoxing roared—reached out—and _pulled,_ putting all the anger, all the pain, all sympathy for the dying creature into the psychic pull.

The blade screamed and jerked, trying to get out of the grip, but Huoxing held, tugging it down, feeling coppery-sweet taste of blood on the lips under the helm.

The blade thrashed and let out a shriek. It exploded in Huoxing’s head. Warning icons flashed on the retinal display, and something gaped in Huoxing’s chest, too, but still the cenobite held. An opening was everything that was needed—the blade released another shriek that stopped Huoxing’s primary heart—but it was too late.

The pull drove the blade straight through the lying creature’s chest.

Fading into darkness, Huoxing felt a gentle mind brush like clear water of a spring.

And then everything was lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  1 See Perry, T.P. (2360). The Long Veins of World. VS: ECyber.  
>   
> 2 Subsector AJ-27.


	5. 01010010 01100101 01110011 01100011 01110101 01100101

‘How’s... Necrocybermancer Huoxing, Venerable Thaumaturge?’ Satevis tried not to show the real scope of anxiety for Huo.

There was no point in bothering Pio, the senior healer of the Jians.1 But Satevis had no doubts that the Jians would withhold information about Huo’s mission—and probably about Huo’s condition, too.

‘Stable, Venerable Talion.’

‘“Kindred” would do just fine, Thaumaturge.’

The knight nodded, checking readings on the datapad. Satevis shifted from foot to foot. Stable meant visitors were allowed, right? And stable how? Stable bad? Stable dying?..

Thaumaturge looked up from the datapad. ‘And it will be “Cyber Demiurge”, kindred.'

Satevis’s mind halted and replayed it. ‘What?'

‘Kindred Huoxing will ascent to the Cyber Demiurge rank.’ The Thaumaturge was talking slowly, and Satevis realised that it must be a common tactic, talking slowly to the closest to the patients. ‘If Huoxing heals, of course.’

‘Of course...’ Satevis ehoed. Then fell on the free cot that happened to be behind. Stared at the walls, at the beeping monitors, at the flow of data on the Thaumaturge’s half-transparent datapad.

‘The Scorpios don’t heal fast, and kindred Huoxing is one of the strongest both in cyber- and psychic casting. We don’t know what exactly has happened to Huoxing’s body and mind, but it was something beyond mere physical and psychic damage, something both of our Orders has never seen before. The body can heal, and is already doing that, albeit slower than usual. The mind is what we can’t elevate. The only thing to do is wait.’

It all sounded distant to Satevis. The Thaumaturge’s lips were moving, and a part of Satevis’s mind that usually noted angles of the battlefield, registered the words, but Satevis couldn’t let it all in. It was happening to someone else, it was about someone else. Not Huo.

‘Huo’s in the coma, right?’

‘No, kindred. It is more akin to ameditative trance.’

‘But one Huo can never return from.’

‘There is a possibility of that, yes.’

Everything was hollow, too quiet like after a blast.

Satevis jumped up. ‘May I see—’

‘Of course.’ The Thaumaturge gestured down the corridor. The healer had a set of lenses over both eyes, moving like antennae of an insect. ‘The last door to the left.’

That part of the medibay contained actual rooms. Each of them had a projector-screen mounted on one of the walls that looked like a window. The view could be changed to almost anything in the galaxy, from green hills of the ancient Earth to light-blue sunrise on Mars to swirling winds of Jupiter.

These rooms were for the knights who were dying.

These rooms rarely were occupied; death came to the knights switfly, and on the battlefield.

Satevis hesitated in front of the door, then stepped under the sensors, and it slid to the side. Walking over the treshold, Satevis halted, frowning. The Thaumaturge must have made a mistake, it was the wrong door—

But on the bedside table was the familiar book of sonnetes.

Satevis remembered how to breathe, and went to the cot on stiff, leaden legs.

When they had been evacuating Huoxing, Satevis hadn’t paid attention to anything. Everything had been eclipsed by fear, _dread_ for Huoxing. Satevis’s armour had been blaring warnings about elevated heartsrate, cramps, blood pressure, but the knight dismissed all of them, carrying Huoxing like a precious burden.

Satevis could only barely remember the way back, how Huoxing had been whisked away by a healer, how they returned to the Temple. At some point, Satevis thought, something prickled the skin on the right side near the gorget of the armour, so somebody must have shot the knight with a tranquilizer or a soporific. And a knight’s body required a heavy dosage.

Satevis had definitely been awake when they had docked at the Temple’s bay, but not entirely sane.

Maybe it had been a mercy, because if Huo looked like this now, what the Scorpio might have looked like _then_? Huo lay pale, ashen, _devoid of colour_ on the cot, immobile, so lifeless Satevis thought for a dreadful moment that Huo was already dead. Golden hair had lost its gleam, and broad knightly shoulders looked impossibly brittle.

The holo-strip hovering over Huo’s head, though, was showing vitals and they definitely looked stable.

Satevis reached up, and frowned at the shaking in the arms, but still flipped through the various reports. Huo was exhausted beyond reason. Normal human would have died from the stress, but thankfully, Huo was the knight of E.Y.E. Malnourishment, strain, a concussion, signs of a collapsed lung—all these things would make the healing a long process, but they were not dangerous. They had managed to pick Huo up just in time, and Satevis brushed away the thought that they could have been late.

The holo-strip had reports about the patient’s initial state, and the readings from the armour—and Satevis’s arms dropped as the data flowed onto the screen.

‘What in the Nine Hells...’

‘Yes, kindred Huoxing has used too many resurrectors.’

Satevis glanced back. How did the Thaumaturge manage to get into the room quietly? _But_ , Satevis realised, _I can_ _’t say I am alert to anything right now._

‘Nine in fourteen standard days? Huo's limit is...’ Satevis stumbled over the words. They wouldn’t understand. Nobody would understand. ‘I... heard Huoxing’s limit is a bit over ten.’

‘Twelve, to be precise.’

Satevis knew that. Knew everything about Huo, medical records, little details that could mean the difference between life and death for the beloved Scorpio. The exact ingredients of the stimulant cocktail Huo’s armour had, the settings of the resurrector modules Huo used, all past injuries, all augmentations...

‘You have medical training, kindred?’

Satevis nodded, and returned the holo-strip to its default screen, watching the steady dual line of Huo’s heartsbeat. ‘Over the basic.’

Huo, like all powerful psychers, was delicate in many aspects, easily pushed out of balance. Satevis couldn’t leave it all to happenstance, and had gone to the senior healers of the Culter Dei, asking for an additional medical course.

What mission had required Huo to use almost all resurrectors during it? And nearing to the critical point.

‘The Necrocybermancer’s armour is taken for data extraction, but...’ The Thaumaturge trailed off, sounding almost sorry.

Satevis watched Huo, watched long enough to notice the faint rise and fall of Huo’s chest. Too faint. ‘I don’t care about the secrets of your Order, Venerable Thaumaturge,’ Satevis said quietly. Ached with the need to touch.

The pastel-green walls of the room were suffocating. The false-window was set on a beach scenery, and ocean was lapping at the shore, blue under a generous sun. The window even emulated whisperings of the waves, and the room was filled with the spicy scent of the ocean, masking the sharp clean smell of medibay.

Satevis ached with memories of Vodyanitsa. Sun pillars in the green water, and light making Huo’s eyes the most beautiful gems in the world.

‘I just want Huo back,’ Satevis finished.

‘Are you lovers?’

The question punched Satevis in the gut. The knigth swirled around, fists clenching. Ready to take the Thaumaturge down.

The healer made a step back. ‘I'm not asking it to report you to your Commander or to ours,’ said the Thaumaturge, arms lifting, showing open palms.

Yes, except that both Orders were keeping tabs on all their knights. They most definitely knew.

‘Then what?’ Satevis asked, and was surprised at the growl that tore across the room.

‘I’m asking that because of what you can do, Venerable Talion. You can save the Scorpio.’

Ice encased Satevis’s spine, and broke, and pierced into the skin of the knight’s back, making Satevis gasp. ‘What... do you mean?’

The lenses shot up over the Thaumaturge’s face, baring the eyes filled with ill-contained fear. ‘Kindred Huoxing is a psyker, and if you are close, you can reach out to Huoxing and call back, and the Scorpio will hear you.’

It took a great effort of will for Satevis to relax, to take the anger and the dread and close them in a mental locker, and put them away. For now.

And the relief in the healer’s eyes was not lost to Satevis.

The knight nodded. ‘Tell me what to do, Thaumaturge.’

 

Satevis spent three days by Huo’s side, watching the rise and fall of Huo’s chest, reading the sonnetes aloud and stumbling over every third word, speaking about anything that came to mind.

Nobody was bothering them. Satevis didn’t know what Thaumaturge Pio told everyone, and didn’t actually care. From time to time the healer came to check the data, but Satevis could read it well enough to see that Huo’s body was healing. Only, Huo as not waking up.

At 0400 on the second day, Cilufer came to the room, the metal staff clinking softly on the floor. The head of Huo’s House was silent, watching the younger Scorpio, then nodded to Satevis and left.

Satevis didn’t even have any energy to salute Venerable Palm.

Then, near the end of the third day, Satevis received a call to the office of Commander Rimanah, execute immediatelly. And it was so tempting to refuse the order.

Satevis was in the middle of asking Huo about an obscure line of one of the sonnetes, the one about the prisoner in the dark cave, but to refuse the Commander’s order could mean trouble for Huo, too, so Satevis closed the book carefully, put it on the bedside table near the green glass pebble, then bent down and pressed a kiss to Huo’s head.

The skin under Satevis’s lips was too hot.

‘I’ll be right back, don’t go anywhere, all right?’ Satevis chuckled quietly, and strode out of the room without looking back. The knight found Thaumaturge Pio by the monitors in the main hall of the medibay. ‘I’m going out for a while.’

Pio shot a glance at Satevis, and nodded. ‘Of course, Venerable Talion. I will look after kindred Huoxing, and send you a message if anything changes.’

Satevis hoped that Commander Rimanah wouldn’t take too long. It was not a new deployment order, couldn’t be, because if it had been, the message would have stated so. Then it had to be about them. About Huo.

Satevis walked out of the medibay, crossed a couple of bridges, nodding to fellow knights and serfs. It was still too strange to hear ‘Venerable Talion’ from everyone. When Huo wakes up, Satevis will tell the beloved right away, Satevis decided. Though the Scorpio wouldn’t miss the new embroidery on the front and back of Satevis’s black tunic, nor the tattoo on Satevis’s left shoulder.

The knight smiled privately at the thought of taking the tunic off and showing the tattoo.

Satevis made an appropriate neutral expression and stepped through the moire silencing screen into Rimanah’s office.

Commander Rimanah wore the armour even in the Temple, even in the privacy of the office. Satevis knew what Rimanah looked like under the skull-helm, but had never actually seen it in real life. Years ago, Satevis thought it to be an appropriate thing, a sign of modesty, of resigning the personal life and presenting to the world as the commander of the Culter Dei.

Now, Satevis thought it was a sign of great pride, the sort that in many worlds would have been considered arrogance, a sin.

Still, Satevis pressed the right hand to the heart and bowed before the Commander. ‘You called, and here I am.’

‘And here you are.’ The Commander’s voice was stretching the words as if in mockery.

Satevis stood upright as the cold wave of anger rose inside.

The Commander huffed under the helm. ‘First, you come to me babbling about a Jian who you _felt_ was in danger, and now, you are spending all your time in the medibay by that Jian’s side!’

_Except that_ , Satevis thought, _first, I came to Divine Warrior Alrescha and we both then went to Commander Huan Lo Pan,_ then _we came to you._

It had been strange, true, an insight during a meditation session. No, not an insight—a certain knowledge that Huo was in danger, would die if Satevis didn’t act.

So Satevis had gone, letting intuition carry over, to the Coryphaeus of Chorus Aqua. Alrescha, like everyone, didn’t trust those who went too far down the path of psykery, but the old knight trusted a warrior’s intuition, and believed in bonds between knights. So Coryphaeus Alrescha had taken Satevis to the leader of the Jians—and just in time, for an evacuation vessel had been arranged already. And by that time, Satevis had been gripping the haft of Hawk so hard it left dents in the palm.

And whatever data the Jians had on their relationship, whatever the Commander knew, Huan Lo Pan, just like the Coryphaeus, had looked at Satevis, then nodded and rearranged the vessel. Then they had gone to Commander Rimanah.

Satevis had been swept by the urge to depart immediatelly.

A pilot of the Jians, a Healer, and a Slayer had ushered Satevis into the shuttle.

Their destination didn’t matter; what mattered was that Huo had been there, and in danger. Satevis had spent the whole torturously endless flight in fruitless mediation, fighting to control the rage howling within, and fighting with the armour to not let it inject tranquilizers. The strain cost Satevis the secondary heart. It had simply given up from the strength.

Satevis had been too far gone to notice.

By the time they had arrived to Gildwelt, the planet had been in ruins.

Hushed curses of the Jians had brought Satevis out of rage-trance somewhat, and the knight had staggered to the main screen. And looked at the world underneath.

The very first thought, Satevis remembered, that had fought its way into rage-addled mind had been, _Why in the Nine Hells they would send Huo to a half-developed world?_ But then Satevis had actually listened to the distant, so very distant talks between the Jians, looked at the various pictures and data on the monitors.

Gildwelt had not been in process of birth.

It had been in the process of dying.

Its agonising convulsions had been tearing continents apart, new vulcans had been woken up and then destroyed in a blast of heavy flames. The planet’s human population was estimated at about a billion plus an unknown contingent of the Feds.

And all were gone.

_It is one of the Nine Hells—and Huo is down there._

They had caught the signal of the beacon almost immediatelly—impossible in such a situation. They hadn’t had to search far—it was the only one quiet place on the whole planet. A giant crystal bowl, shaped like an eye or a leaf, and the size of one of the Three Peaks of Mars. The beacon had been sending its cry into the universe right from the center of the bowl.

Satevis had taken a drop shuttle, would have jumped right from the orbit if anyone had tried to interfere. It had been the best flight in Satevis’s life. The shuttle had landed near the beacon, and Satevis, blind from fear and pain—still not noticing that the secondary heart had been dead for seven hours already—stumbled out of the shuttle.

Huo had been deep asleep, the beacon near the Scorpio. The armour with the insignia of the House of Scorpio had been scratched, and Satevis had linked their armours immediatelly, by pure instinct—and swayed from relief as the readings had assured that the wearer of the medium Jian armour (House of Scorpio issue), is alive.

Satevis had scooped Huo into the arms and stumbled back into the shuttle, then let the authopilot carry them back to the orbit. When the healer had taken Huo away, darkness had claimed Satevis, and let go only when they had been approaching the Temple.

Satevis returned back to present, and met the black lenses of the golden skull-helm. ‘I am on a healing leave, and kindred Huoxing is my friend.’ Never had Satevis ever felt such a remorse towards the Commander. Some knights liked the twilights of the political games, both during missions and inside the Orders. Satevis only wanted to fight the foes of humanity, and didn’t want to be dragged into whatever games the high command had been playing. Satevis only hoped that the promotion to Divine Talion wouldn’t mean dabbling in more politics.

Thankfully, Coryphaei stood between a Divine Talion and the command.

And besides, Satevis was tired. Healing from complete collapse of the secondary heart was no joke.

The black lenses studied the knight, and Satevis’s hand ached for the feel of Hawk’s haft. ‘I hope you remember where your loyalties lie, _Divine Talion of the Culter Dei_.’

All emotions were drawn into the black, cold hole of rage inside Satevis, and the face of the knight was heavy as a stone mask. ‘They lie with the humankind, my Commander. I remember.’

Rimanah tapped fingers on the pristine desk made of genuine dark wood and adorned by printed books in leather bindings. ‘Wonderful. Don’t forget that. Dismissed, knight.’

Satevis bowed and turned on stiff legs, then subvocalised, ‘Thaumaturge Pio, are there any changes?’

‘Nothing, kindred, stable improvement of bodily health, but—’

Satevis froze dead on the bridge. ‘What?’

‘You have to come here, kindred.’

Satevis set out to run, despite burning lungs and stuttering of the new, still growing secondary heart. Skidding on the polished floor, Satevis crashed into a wall and bounced off it towards the entrance to the medibay. ‘Pio! What is it?’

The Thaumaturge, lenses moving over the scarred face without stop, gestured to the familiar sick-room, and Satevis, heart in the throat, stepped through the door.

Then flew to the side of the cot and fell to the knees. ‘Huo...’

There was barely a golden line of iris under the half-open eyelids, and there wasn’t the usual glow there, and the rise and fall of the chest was still too faint, but _Huo was alive_.

A heavy knot in Satevis’s chest had suddenly unwound and melted away, and the knight took the Scorpio’s hand and kissed it. It was bony and limp. Satevis thumbed the wrist that could easily fit into the circle of Satevis’s fingers, and felt a flutter of a pulse under the skin. Defeated, kissed that pulse point, too, and sobbed.

‘Sa... ti...’ It was nothing more but a whisper, the sound like a leaf falling from a tree in the quiet forest, but it held Satevis like a lifeline.

Satevis looked up and the room was blurry for some reason. ‘You scared me, you damned psyker.

‘Sorry.’

It was like the heart breaking again, and it was actually painful, stealing breath, sharp, like being stabbed—Satevis gasped and pressed a hand to the chest.

A hand touched Satevis’s shoulder. ‘Such stress might be deadly for you, kindred,’ said Pio.

‘I’m not... going anywhere.’ It was painful to talk, to breathe, as if the lungs were pierced, as if the hearts were torn apart—but Satevis was smiling.

Huo was alive. _Alive._

Satevis refused to go even when the Thaumaturge called for two more healers and threatened to shoot Satevis with a soporific. Satevis laughed at that. The new heart meant no soporifics, no tranquilizers, and no stimulants, and even in pain, even unarmed, Satevis could take on three healers.

Huo was alive.

In the end, they installed another cot in the room.

Huo had fallen into slumber almost immediatelly, but the holo-strip over the Scorpio was showing data normal for a good, deep sleep. For Satevis, lying on the cot pushed to Huo’s, with another holo-strip, these readings were better than the cryptic smile of the famous lady, better than the sonnetes in the book on the bedside table.

Huo was alive.

Satevis took the Scorpio’s hand, and promised that everything would be well.

 

It didn’t turn out like that.

 

Satevis woke up sluggish, but lay with closed eyes for a moment, relaxing at the sound of ocean waves and the scent of the ocean, thinking about carrying Huo to the water. They deserved rest.

Then a sharp pain shot through the chest, and Satevis sat up with a gasp as the memories rushed back. But then a hand squeezed the knight’s hand, and the pain slowly melted away.

Satevis looked to the right.

‘You are hurting.’ Huo’s voice was quiet, but the golden eyes were gleaming and alert, and for a moment, Satevis forgot how to breathe.

Then forced out a smile. ‘It's nothing. Just a collapsed heart.’

Steep arches of brows knit, and Huo shot a glance at the data hovering over Satevis’s cot. ‘The secondary heart?’

‘It's nothing, really.’ The artificial sound of waves was washing over them, and Satevis’s hearts were beating heavy in the augmented chest. Huo was alive. ‘How are you feeling?’

The golden eyes closed. ‘Tired.’

Their cots were pushed together, and it was nothing, really, not a strain to Satevis’s new heart, to bend across the cot and kiss the thin lips. They were dry, and they caught against Satevis’s. Satevis didn’t care if anybody walked in on them kissing.

Huo was alive.

‘You are healing. It's normal.’

‘I don’t remember anything.’

No wonder, considering the state Satevis had found the beloved Scorpio in. ‘Don’t strain yourself. They took your armour.’

‘For questioning?’ Huo didn’t open the golden eyes, and lying like that, the Scorpio looked like a statue of a god of modern age, with metal, circuits infused with the flesh—the most beautiful and beloved, the god of machines and spirits alike.

Satevis found it a strange but apparently a shared quirk among the Hackers and Cybermancers, to treat all machines like living beings.

‘Yes. For questioning.’

‘How long have I been out?’

Satevis lay back again, but didn’t let go of Huo’s hand. ‘Seven days standard since we picked you up on Gildwelt. Before that? I’m not sure.’

Huo was usually quiet, but this silence was unnerving. Like Huo was not quiet because of a conscious choice, but because something was empty. Void.

‘Tell me about your heart.’

Trust Huo to not let go of an issue.

Satevis glanced up at the data. ‘I had a feeling that you needed me. It was like an electroshock, or like the battlefield intuition. As if you were calling me. I...’ No, that was a tale for a different time. ‘I had help, and then we set off to retrieve you. And I guess the strain of it was too much for my secondary heart, but I didn’t notice that before I picked you up to the ship.’

‘Where did you find me?’

‘On the surface of the planet.’ Satevis decided to not shock Huo with graphic descriptions of what had happened to the planet. ‘You set the beacon, but passed out. What’s the last thing you remember?’

Huo didn’t answer. Chill encased Satevis’s spine again, but looking at the Scorpio, Satevis saw the rise and fall of the chest. Huo was just sleeping.

 

Satevis dozed off, too, then woke up in the half-darkness of the sick-room with an armful of the Scorpio. Huo had moved closer in the sleep, and Satevis listened for their mingled breathing and for the breathing of the ocean behind the window, and drifted off again.

They woke up together the next time. Satevis had heard about it, the synchronicity between certain knights who had been working for years together. But before Huo, Satevis had never experienced it. Satevis had never experienced many things before Huo.

Two healers-in-training brought them food—just kelp salad, and protein cubes flavoured to taste like fish, and tea. Satevis watched with singing joy in the hearts at Huo chewing on the long brown strings of salad.

Satevis thought they’d go back to sleep after the meal, and moved to wrap an arm around Huo’s shoulders. The door slid to the side, but Satevis didn’t move away from Huo. The Thaumaturge had clearly instructed other healers to not bother them.

Satevis looked up—and froze.

‘Venerable Talion.’

Satevis straightened up, glanced at the bedside table, but Hawk was not there. Of course, no weapons were allowed in the medibay. Not that a knight needed any weapons, though…

‘Commander,’ sounded Huo’s voice, and relief washed over Satevis. It was the same, always-calm voice as ever. ‘Ancient Cilufer.’

Both senior knights were in simple tunics, black with embroidery matching their rank, a scorpion on Cilufer’s, and a phoenix on Huan Lo Pan’s. Both knights were heavily scarred, Cilufer’s lower jaw was all metal. The Archivist had come without the usual staff, and looked strange without it.

‘We want to ask you about your experiences,’ Cilufer said softly, and then caught Satevis’s eyes. ‘You may stay, Venerable Talion.’

Huo’s hand squeezed Satevis’s. ‘I didn’t know Satevis has become a Divine Talion.’

Satevis looked down. Huo’s words put Satevis into a mortifying pit of embarassement more than the presence of the Jian Commander and the Head of Huo’s House did. ‘Sorry. I... forgot to tell you.'’

‘Another time.’ The Commander’s eyes, Satevis suddenly noticed, were pale-green like fine jade. ‘You might want to celebrate kindred Satevis’s ascention when you yourself walk up the next Step, Huoxing.’

Satevis smiled. There was no surprise here. It was about time.

‘Now,’ Cilufer said and waved, and two flat seats flew to them from closed compartments in the walls. ‘We are concerned about your state, Huoxing.’

‘I experienced strange damage,’ Huo said quietly. Satevis squeezed Huo’s hand. ‘I know. Venerable Thaumaturge told me.’

‘The data from your armour has been helpful, but all readings end two days before the extraction time.’

Satevis frowned and couldn’t hold back the question. ‘What do you mean, “ends”? The armour’s recordings cannot be stopped unless the armour is destroyed.’

‘You are right, kindred.’ Culifer’s answer was so patient that Satevis slouched. It was embarassing. ‘However, it appears that for seventy two hours the armour was not recording anything. There is no data from any of the armour’s systems. It is as if two days have simply vanished from existence, though the systems of the armour show the right current date and time, and although the armour is damaged significantly, it is not beyond repair and everything before and after that two days gap has been recorded and is readable.’

Huo was sitting propped on the pillows, with one hand folded on the lap and the other in Satevis’s hand. Tense and trembling. ‘I have a gap in my memories, too, Ancient, Commander, although I have not been aware it was that significant.’

Satevis nearly screamed with the need to pull Huo close, to protect the Scorpio from pain, and to the Nine Hells with discretion, with propriety. They could execute Satevis for all the knight cared. Later.

‘You, like your armour, have suffered much, child,’ Cilufer said. ‘You were dying, and if not for kindred Satevis, we wouldn’t be promoting you to the next Step soon.’

Huo was not looking at any of them, the Scorpio’s gaze focused on the hand on the lap. ‘I remember... falling. Dying.’

Satevis’s hearts clenched. It was in the past. Huo was alive, safe here. But why did Satevis want to take Huo and run far, far away? Why did it feel like Huo was drifting away?

‘Help me remember,’ Huo asked quietly and looked up at Cilufer.

The Archivist got up heavily and moved to Huo whose hand fell out of Satevis’s.

What are they...

Then the Archivist placed palms on the sides of Huo’s head, tilted it up, and Huo sighed with closed eyes. ‘Relax, child, and listen to my heartsbeat,’ said Cilufer.

Satevis wanted to take Huo’s hand again, but didn’t want to disrupt their concentration. Would they interrogate them both? Was that the reason why they told Satevis to stay?

For all that Satevis knew that bonds appeared between some knights, born out of many battles spent together, but as far as Satevis could remember there was no mention of such things as knowing exactly when your bondmate is experiencing pain. Not with such certainty and intensity. Satevis had nearly died there, too, beside Huo.

Satevis had no doubts death would have claimed not one, but two knights that day.

Satevis shifted on the cot, trying to make as little noise as possible, and caught the Commander’s eyes. Huan Lo Pan nodded.

Would that earn Satevis digrace from Commander Rimanah? Surely, the head of the Culter Dei would know everything—or almost everything—about this... encounter. And by now Rimanah surely had drawn conclusions about the nature of the relationship between two knights.

There were no rules against fraternization—it was a given that the knights had more pressing matters to attend to. But when you trained, lived, fought together, bled for each other, it was inevitable, and bonds were to tighten between knights, sometimes to the point of the knights becoming lovers. It was not unheard of, and there were rumours that the Commanders of the Orders had been lovers in the past. Which, in Satevis’s opinion, was unlikely unless Rimanah had been different then.

But the Orders had been drifting apart recently, and Satevis was not stupid. The knight knew what exactly Rimanah meant while asking about loyalties.

But Satevis hadn’t lied.

E.Y.E. engaged in politics on missions by necessity, though politics were mostly the Secreta’s field and they had other agents for that, but the politics had no place inside the Orders. Which was, Satevis acknowledged, an almost utopian ideal. But, one thing at a time. If Rimanah had problems with Satevis’s relationship with Huo, Satevis would deal with it in due time.

The Archivist let go of Huo’s head and made a step back, and swayed, but the Jian Commander caught the Ancient by the elbow.

Huo released a long, heavy sigh and, without opening the eyes, tilted to the side. Satevis wrapped an arm around Huo’s shoulders, taking the Scorpio’s weight. ‘It’s empty.’ Huo’s voice was almost drowned by the sound of artificial waves. Huo squinted, and Satevis commanded the room to dim the lighting, then reached for a wet cloth on the bedside table and brushed Huo’s face, pressing fingertips to the lines of the beloved face.

‘You were unconscious for those two days, child,’ Cilufer said. The Ancient had already been standing upright. ‘Resurrections put a strain on your body and mind alike. There is no your fault in it.’

‘We will find out what’s wrong with your armour, Huoxing,’ the Commander said as gently as the Archivist did. ‘For now, rest. Both of you.’

The elders left, and Satevis pulled Huo close and kissed the Scorpio on the forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  1 Thaumaturge Pio has left a memoir which contains interesting stories about E.Y.E. See Pio (2363). A place where my hearts go: Confessions of a knight.


	6. 01000100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 01110011

They didn’t find anything useful in Huoxing’s mind nor in the armour. There was nothing wrong with the armour except the two days worth of data missing.

There was everything wrong with Huoxing.

The healing was getting progressively faster, and Huoxing could enjoy time with Satevis. Huoxing had never thought they would receive the indulgence of sleeping in each other’s arms in the Temple. The healers didn’t let anyone bother them, but some of Satevis’s kindred from Chorus Aqua had visited. Huoxing felt their gaze but they didn’t comment on the presence of one presumably unstable Jian, and it was worth it for the way Satevis’s face lit up at the sight of the kindred.

They were appropriately polite with Huoxing; it had been announced officially that there was to be a new Divine Cybermancer among the Jian Shang Di.

Huoxing received several congratulatory messages, written appropriately, gold ink on black paper. Thaumaturge Pio, delivering them, grumbled about the senders using a venerable healer as a simple messenger. Huoxing was forbidden for a while to use the neurocybernetic interface, so for composing responses Huoxing used Satevis, asking the other cenobite to send the messages.

It felt strangely quiet to not being able to interface with machines directly. Quiet, and peaceful.

Huoxing mostly slept, snuggled to Satevis’s side. It was comforting, listening to Satevis’s heartsbeat, especially after learning that Satevis had almost died.

Then, the nightmares came.

Huoxing was used to dealing with nightmares—all psykers suffered from them; the further they went down the Path, the more nightmares they encounterd. Huoxing usually used the methods to wake up inside the dreams to control them, but these nightmares were uncontrollable.

The first one was horrible.

Huoxing was aware of falling asleep, drifting in Satevis’s arms—and then Huoxing was falling into a bottomless abyss, as hungry as it was black, devoid of any colour, devoid of any emotion but despair.

Huoxing was suffocating, lungs pierced and bleeding, ribs broken and grinding against each other, and something was pulling from the abyss, powerful enough to grab Huoxing by the legs and tug...

And then Huoxing was yanked _up_.

Gasping, Huoxing tried to breathe again, and reached to the legs trying to pry the power that was tugging at them away—but couldn’t move under a heavy weight.

Huoxing looked up—and stared at Satevis.

Watery scent of sea water poured into Huoxing’s abused lungs, soothing them, and the glans at the back of Huoxing’s throat kicked in, picking the scent apart, analysing it, searching for Satevis’s own scent, heavy and musky and clean underneath the smell of the ocean.

In the darkness, Satevis’s eyes were green stars, beaconing to Huoxing, guiding to a safe harbour.

‘Breathe, love. Listen to my breathing, and try to match it.’

It was natural to obey the quiet, calm voice that wrapped about Huoxing like a warm blanket. And Huoxing listened, and timed their breathing into synch, and took account of the surroundings, of sensations.

The press of Satevis’s solid body radiating heat, the shape familiar and desired, a reminder of stolen moments together in different places; their joined hands, fingers entwined, and if not for the turned off neurocybernetic interface, they could have connected like this, joined in the most intimate of ways, the bond of minds and hearts; the steady beating of Satevis’s hearts, one heavy, another lighter, faster, younger, stuttering from time to time as it was adjusting; Satevis’s broad shoulders, blocking everything away, leaving only them in the small enclosed world.

Both of them were naked, old scars and ridges grating against each other, curves and angles aligning.

Fingers tightened in their mutual hold.

The sharp scent of ocean hung in the air, thickening the darkness.

Huoxing breathed out. The nightmare was washed away, only quickly spreading warmth remained—the slowly burning fire of desire.

‘I love you, Sati.’

Satevis’s smile was incandescent.

 

Huoxing woke up with a clearer head, nose tucked under Satevis’s chin. They didn’t untwine their fingers, and Huoxing was lulled back to sleep again by the sound of waves and Satevis’s breathing.

And then, the same abyss called Huoxing again. It felt like the lone falling body was dissolving in the blackness, and the despair coming up from the pit of the abyss filled Huoxing to the brim, to bursting, breaking out, outward, smashing ribs and all bones, and exploding in the hearts.

Huoxing screamed when it tore through the throat—and was shaken awake.

Satevis was holding Huoxing’s face in the palms. ‘Huo, wake up!’

Pain stabbed Huoxing at the ribs, throat was scraped raw, and Huoxing turned on the side and curled, and realised that whimpers were coming not from Satevis.

‘I'm calling Pio.’

Huoxing didn’t even stop the beloved. But what good could it do? The healer came quickly enough, and flicked the holostrip over Huoxing. Huoxing turned on the back, watching the flow of data.

It made no sense. Nothing made sense.

Huoxing locked eyes with Satevis, and was reassured by Satevis’s loving gaze.

‘I wouldn’t advise taking soporifics yet, Cybermancer,’ said the Thaumaturge at last. Pio hovered over Huoxing, lenses changing, checking Huoxing’s eyes. ‘It is different from your usual nightmares, isn’t it?’

Huoxing could only nod, tugging the sheet closer—not to hide the nakedness of the body—it couldn’t disturb a healer—but to hide the shake of the hands.

A palm touched Huoxing’s shoulder, and Huoxing, turning slightly, nuzzled Satevis’s arm.

‘Huo had it a few hours ago,’ Satevis elaborated for Huoxing. ‘But we managed through it.’

‘How?’

‘I talked Huo out of it, and then we had sex.’ Satevis was usually the emotional one, but now Huoxing could recognise the calmness as the one all Cybermancers were taught in the House of Scorpio. Were they blurring into each other, picking each other apart and reassembling as a new, one creature? Did others notice the change?

‘And yet your endorphine levels are unusually low, Cybermancer. I’ll adjust your diet, and I’m afraid I must inform Ancient Cilufer.’

Huoxing glanced at the Thaumaturge, and nodded.

‘Do you want me to change the scenery and the atmosphere in the room?’

Huoxing listened to the soothing breathing of the ocean. ‘No. It calms me. Both of us.’

The Thaumaturge nodded, turned down the lighting, and left them alone.

Huoxing moved to Satevis as the other cenobite got under the sheet again.

‘Come here.’ Satevis wrapped Huoxing in the arms, and Huoxing realised the prickling in the eyes was the urge to cry.

‘I’m afraid to sleep. Tell what you have seen there on Gildwelt when you came after me?’

Satevis moved Huoxing around, and Huoxing liked that for the bigger cenobite it was easy to do so. ‘Destruction.’

Huoxing settled on Satevis’s broad chest, where the heartsbeat could be guessed under the thickened skin and augmented ribcage. ‘Yes, Gildwelt has been devastated by the long years of the Deep Wars.’

‘No. That’s not what I’ve seen.’ There was a strain in Satevis’s voice, a flatness unfamiliar in the usually colourful tone.

Huoxing felt the pull of the abyss again, and kissed the center of Satevis’s chest, catching the rich scent of their previous coupling, and the hammering of the primary heart. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I've seen total destruction. A world on fire—and a single island of peace in the raging hell.’

Huoxing pushed up to look Satevis in the eyes. They were dark pools of green ice.

A palm, calloused from handling the haft of Hawk and the rifle, touched Huoxing’s cheek. ‘You were asleep like a child in a cradle, lying at the heart of a crystal bowl, like a newborn god encased in metal and death.’

Huoxing couldn’t decide which was more disturbing, the sudden chill in Satevis’s eyes, the deep, overworldly rumble of Satevis’s voice, or the strange poetry of the words. Satevis was a poet like many of the cenobites, but Satevis’s poetry was that of a well-placed bullet, of the deadly sweeps of Hawk, of the recoil of GCTG, the poetry of motion and killing.

And for all that Satevis often spoke more than Huoxing, the words usually were light.

These words were heavy, cold, like the green ice, and they were not just misty symbolisms.

‘I am no god, beloved,’ Huoxing said just to say anything.

‘You are, Fiery Star of the House of Scorpio.’ A hand pressed on Huoxing’s back, pulling them snug together, and it was not long before they started moving like waves against each other, like shore and tide.

‘Venerable Thaumaturge hinted that sex helps you,’ the voice, spicy like the scent of the ocean, murmured to Huoxing. ‘Let me worship you, and help you.’

The abyss was lost to the touch, and the smell, and the taste, and the movement, and Huoxing almost forgot about it.

Almost.

 

They woke up again in synch, and there was a tray with salad, kelp and oranges, and protein stew, and tea waiting for them.

Halfway through their meal, the door opened, breaking the companionable silence of their cloister, and let in their officers.

Coryphaeus Alrescha and Ancient Cilufer did not seem to be bothered by their state of undress, although Huoxing swallowed the food hastily and tugged the sheets up to hide the fading bruises on the hips. However, there was no hiding the bite marks on the chest, or the relaxed state of them both, or Satevis’s small private smile.

‘As you were, kindred,’ Cilufer waved, the glint in the Archivist’s eyes suggesting that the bruises and the bite marks, and the general debaushed state was not, indeed, lost. ‘We came to announce you that henceforth you two are going to work together. But firstly, you should be cleared for field work, and then another thing is awaiting you, Huoxing.’

Huoxing was torn between joy flattering in both hearts, and worry.

‘Kindred Huoxing is still to be elevated to the rank of the Divine Cybermancer,’ Alrescha clarified.

'And this is for you, Satevis.' The Coryphaeus gave a vellum scroll to Satevis. Alrescha’s right hand was an augmented one, with rich golden engravings on each digit and plate.

Satevis frowned and took the scroll in both hands as was the traditional way. It looked heavy, black with sides dipped in gold, and a big golden seal with a skull. Commander Rimanah’s own seal.

Huoxing was chilled by the sight. They were getting on assignments together, the Ancients had told it themselves. What was the problem?

However, as Satevis read through the scroll, the beloved face lit up as if sunrise had brushed it, and a smile flowered on Satevis’s lips. What was in the scroll? Satevis reached the end of the scroll, closed it, and pressed a kiss to the vellum. ‘Thank you, Ancient, for this message.’

‘I have but delivered it.’ The Coryphaeus was smiling, too. Apparently, Alrescha knew the contents of the scroll.

Huoxing looked at Ancient Cilufer, asking without words for a clarification. Cilufer’s dark eyes were warm, and reaching into the folds of the tunic with the crest of the House of Scorpio, Cilufer produced a similar scroll, but the seal was the _ume_ flower.

Huoxing broke the seal, bracing for the worst, unrolled the scroll and read.

Then read again.

Then looked up at the Ancients.

‘I don’t understand.’ By their confused expressions Huoxing realised this was not the reaction they were expecting, and clarified, ‘This tradition was revoked fifteen years ago. So why now? Why... us?’ And it dawned. ‘They want to make an example of us. Show Secreta that E.Y.E. is not falling apart.’

The Ancients exchanged looks. A hand clasped Houxing’s shoulder. ‘Does it really matter, Huo?’ It hurt how cheerful and happy Satevis sounded. And if not for that realisation, Huoxing would have felt the same…

Leaning on Satevis and gripping the scroll, Huoxing said, ‘I don’t want to be a pawn in this game. Don’t want to be a poster figure.’ Then looked at Satevis.

The smile faded from Satevis’s lips, and Huoxing wanted to bring it back. But then Satevis nodded. ‘I understand. This doesn’t change anything. What we have is enough.’

Huoxing released a breath and clasped Satevis’s hand. ‘Thank you, my love.’

‘Consider it carefully, children,’ said Alrescha quietly. ‘The bond is unbreakable in death and in life, recognised by the Federation and by eighteen free worlds, with full legal rights. You cannot be made to testify against each other, and whatever awaits the two Orders in the future, you cannot be forced to fight against each other.’

Cilufer touched the other Ancient’s hand. ‘This is a surprise to them, Rescha. They don’t have to decide right now.’

Huoxing sifted through the memory, and straightened up. ‘You two are bonded. But there was another...’

Cilufer nodded, the Ancient’s face suddenly a stone mask of pain. ‘Andromeda. We were the last ones to be bonded before it was revoked, and soon after that we lost Andromeda, and haven’t been complete ever since.’

‘There is no rush,’ said Alrescha, ‘as Cilufer has reminded me. Consider it, children.’ They left after that.

Huoxing looked at the scroll again.

‘Full rights, huh?’ Satevis said thoughtfully. ‘We can even get on some Federal world and adopt a kid. Or three.’

‘We can’t get out of E.Y.E. We are sworn to serve until our death.’ Although the way Satevis said that made it sound tempting.

A hand took the notice of Huoxing’s hand and put both scrolls on the bedside table. Huoxing looked up at Satevis, and found tenderness in the ocean-like green eyes. ‘It wouldn’t change anything,’ Satevis said softly.

‘It wouldn’t,’ Huoxing nodded.

‘And it would change everything.’

Huoxing smiled despite the weight of it. ‘You truly want to be stuck with me for the rest of your life?’

‘I'm stuck already, and wouldn’t change it for anything.’ Then Satevis’s face took on a strange expression, and the Talion cursed.

‘What?’

‘I forgot to ask if I could attend the ceremony of your elevation.’

Huoxing took Satevis’s hand, not answering right away. ‘How does it go for you, Culter Dei?’

Satevis made a face. ‘We stand a silent vigil. It’s supposed to make us think about our past deeds, and humble us. Damned cold, if you ask me, that’s what it makes you think about.’

Huoxing laughed, holding Satevis’s broad palm in both hands, rubbing fingers over familiar callouses. ‘We do the same, only it’s not silent. I am to recite mantras and enter a trance, and at some point during the night, the Ancient will come and test me. I have to bring a witness, someone who would keep vigil with me.’ Huoxing opened Satevis’s palm and pressed a kiss to the center of it, looking up at the beloved. ‘I will be honoured to have you by my side.’ And as Satevis’s eyes glinted, Huoxing chuckled. ‘And no, we can’t have sex during the vigil.’

Satevis raises both eyebrows and managed to school the expression into that of the perfect innocence. ‘You offend me, Jian Shang Di. Do you really think I'd have such _impure_ thoughts?’

‘I would be alarmed if you didn’t.’ The quiet banter lifted some of the weight off Huoxing’s hearts, and Satevis’s hand was warm and solid. ‘How long have we been together?’

‘Nine years,’ said Satevis without even pausing to think. ‘I can tell you the exact number of days, hours, minutes and seconds, standard.’

Huoxing glanced at the bedside table where the scrolls lay like coffers with precious secrets. ‘It wouldn’t change anything.’

‘No, it wouldn’t.’

 

When Ancient Cilufer named Huoxing the new Divine Cybermancer, Huoxing, dazed from trance and incense burning in the high hall, turned to  where Satevis had spent the whole night keeping vigil, and said, ‘I will. I will be yours, Satevis, Divine Talion of Chorus Aqua.’


	7. 01010101 01101110 01101001 01110100 01100101 01100100

Satevis smiled at the sight of Huoxing rubbing the left shoulder where a new tech-tattoo had been healing. It contained the microchip with encrypted data about Huoxing’s bondmate. That is, Satevis;s data. And besides, it was damned beautiful, Satevis’s full name written in white ink in the form of a bull _rampant_. Satevis had spent their first night after getting the tattoos tonguing the whorls of the tattoo, still fresh and bleeding if pressed, making Huo gasp.

Satevis had Huo’s full name in the form of a scorpion, of course.

They were wearing long-sleeved jackets but Satevis could touch the exact spot where Huoxing’s tattoo was.

They were sitting on the opposite seats in a crammed taxi flyer, but nothing, not even the constant jabs into the ribs by the itchy youth to the right of Satevis could dampen Satevis’s mood. Not even the fact that the mission was seemingly simple, and that, in Satevis’s experience, was asking for trouble. But both of them were not still fit for the ‘burst in and kill everything’ type of missions.

The objective was to make an exchange with a private hand who had obtained an ancient tech item for the Secreta. Huo, as a Cybermancer, was to make sure the item was genuine, and to wipe the traces of their visit from the planet. Satevis was to cover their tracks and provide heavy support if need be.

The hand was not stupid; the world the exchange was to take place on was one of the Federal worlds, but far away enough from the center to be semi-independent. Easy to come, easy to fade. And the added bonus was that the world’s economy was based on entertainment and pleasure industry.

The hand was to contact them some time during the two days period from their arrival, so Satevis was planning to spend at least one day doing nothing.

E.Y.E. opened a discreet account and poured significant funds to maintain their cover of newly-weds, rich enough to afford a few days on Pigalle, but not rich enough to attract unwanted attention. And while as warriors of E.Y.E., they were not rich at all, they were, by all standards, newly-weds.

It didn’t change anything, and yet, it had changed everything.

Though Satevis would have preferred to see Huoxing wearing something more appropriate—long black silks or golden brocade. Or nothing at all, that would’ve been good, too.

In accordance with their cover identities, Huoxing dressed in wide flowy pants in the latest fashion on Proxima Primus, the world they were supposedly coming from. The pants were purple with a silver pattern of hexagons running diagonally across the left leg. Over that Huoxing was wearing a short tunic with long, wide sleeves, the same purple colour and with the same silver hexagons, but running this time across the right arm.

During the healing Huoxing’s hair had grown out to short curls that the Scorpio kept swiping away from the Scorpio’s face. Neither of them tried to hide their augmentations, mostly because most of them were invisible to an ordinary eye. Even the mesh on Huoxing’s face looked like a pretty make-up pattern customary to some worlds, and not like the military-grade syntheskin it was.

Satevis was wearing a matching suit, though in reversed colours, purple hexagons on silver tunic and pants. The free, flowing clothing allowed them to conceal their weapons underneath the garments, Hawk and the Bear Killer on Satevis and Song-of-Winter on Huoxing. Satevis longed for TRK, and the weight of the Bear Killer, heavier than GCTG, was unusual, but it matched Hawk’s weight perfectly at Satevis’s left thigh in a compartment that was concealed and screened and made Satevis’s thighs look wider than they were.

Huoxing was carrying Song-of-Winter in a compartment along the left thigh, and clips of ammo for Satevis on the right thigh. Satevis admired the sway of Huoxing’s gait.

Firepowers, however, was their last resort that Satevis hoped they wouldn’t need. In case something went awry they were to rely first and foremost on Satevis’s sheer force and Huoxing’s psykery. Satevis hoped they wouldn’t need that either. If Huoxing was unfit to go on brutal operations, the use of psykery was not advised either.

Satevis caught Huoxing’s eyes and smiled. They were supposed to play a happy couple, right? But the smile was a play only partially. They _were_ a couple—more, _spouses_ , in the eye of the law and all powers that be.

The taxi landed on the roof of their hotel, and emptied its womb. Satevis stood up—and hit the head on the low roof. Rubbing the hit spot, Satevis reached out to Huoxing, and Huoxing’s grip was sure. They stepped down the short apparel on the roof.

Satevis shielded the eyes from the blazing sun. Pigalle had an old star, so under the net of shielding satellites that were guarding the atmosphere of the planet, a new sun was imitated, keeping the usual 24-hours cycle natural to humans, though the planet was turning slower than that.

Satevis turned to Huoxing and smiled at the golden eyes. ‘Finally here, my love.’

A short sound buzzed to the side, and Satevis frowned and turned to it. A small sphere was hovering near them, pristine-white. ‘Reverend Sati-and-Xingsho Di, Hotel Preston welcomes you. I am Angelo, you designated guide and humble servant. Would you care to follow me to your rooms?’ The taxi had scanned their DNA upon boarding, and so the robot was sent to greet them.

The DNA, of course, was fake, too.

Huoxing squeezed Satevis’s hand, and nodded to the guide. ‘Yes, please. We are tired from the long journey.’

‘Follow me, please.’ The sphere floated at the pace of slow walk to the hoverdics that were carrying the guests to their suites and other destinations.

They stepped on one of the discs and it silently took to the air then turned to the right, as gently as a falling feather.

Hotel Preston, one of the prestigious establishments, but not expensive enough to attract unwanted attention—just the kind of hotel that reverend Sati-and-Xingsho Di could afford—was a globe that consisted of suite sections, and half of them were submerged in the sea. Sections opened both to the center of the globe and to the outer world, allowing guests to go out on the flyers or hoverdics. The inner space of the sphere was a maze of tubes connecting different sections.

Satevis and Huoxing, while planning for the mission, had agreed upon a suite hovering just over the sea level. A small vessel had been descreetly submerged beforehand, the autopilot ready to pick them up at the first notice, but for the sake of cover they rented a flying car for the duration of their official stay here.

The hoverdisc neared their suite, and the sphere—Angelo—went to the scanning device on the door. The door, round and heavy like blast doors on a spacecraft, parted before them.

Satevis used a Sensitive Wave and Sound Triangulation to made a quick recon of the suite but it was empty. It took Satevis a quarter of a second, and then Satevis turned to help Huoxing to jump off the hoverdisc. They entered the suite and the doors slid shut behind them without any sound.

Angelo led them to the living area, made in the soft blue and green colours. The wall opposite of the door opened to a balcony that served as a landing platform. Satevis smiled; they had chosen the right suite. The view was on the sea, unobscured by anything, and only far away at the distant shore needles of the Parion skyscrapers pierced the clouds.

By the low table made of coral—or rather, grown out of it—was their suitcase. They had taken an appropriate amount of clothes and all necessities that were expected from two married people on a pleasant vacation. They would likely leave the suitcase behind. There was nothing truly essential in it anyway, not for the knights of E.Y.E.

‘I hope you will find everything to your satisfaction,’ buzzed their guide.

‘Thank you, Angelo,’ said Huo politely, and sat on the wooden swing suspended by ropes from two blue coral trees. ‘I am tired after the long flight, so I think we’re going to rest for a while.’

The sphere floated lower then up, like a nodding human. Most likely it was programmed to imitate just that. ‘I understand. The terminals are already programmed to satisfy your every need, and you can call me any time.’ The sphere floated to the doors. ‘I hope you enjoy your stay on our beautiful planet!’ With that cheerful conclusion Angelo floated out of the suite.

Satevis sent an activation command to the masking devices that had been planted into the suitcase. They would not jam signals of the tracking devices in the suite, but change them into what the knights wanted, hiding their conversations and images under those more appropriate to their cover story. Satevis dimissed the confirmation that popped up on the retinal display, and turned to Huo. The Scorpio was lounging on the bench of the swing, swaying gently back and forth.

Dynamics were playing a soft sound of gentle sea.

‘We have seen the suite’s bathing room on the holopicts.’ Satevis raised both eyebrows, hoping it was the least bit tempting. ‘Care to check it in person?’

Huo snorted—an unexpected, and beloved sound,—and reached out.

And what could Satevis do? Only take Huo’s hand.


	8. 01000100 01101001 01110110 01101001 01100100 01100101 01100100

The Temple had several treasures tightly guarded, and one of them—and Huoxing could agree with Satevis on that—were the hot springs in the deep caves under the main dormitory. They healed the body and helped to relax the mind, and one of them, filled with water from a waterfall, had been one of Huoxing’s most favourite places to meditate.

However, Huoxing and Satevis couldn’t indulge in taking a bath there together, not entirely; the pools and basins were rarely unoccupied, and although it provided a good place to meet others without regard to rank or Path, Huoxing liked to enjoy the hot water—hotter than any normal human could bear it—either alone or with Satevis.

The suite they had chosen provided such an opportunity, and they used it well.

If only for a mere moment, they could forget about the outside world and take care of each other.

Lying in the flowery scented water of the shallow pool, with Satevis’s weight pressing down on Huoxing exquisitely, the cenobite entertained a thought of living like this, free to go anywhere they desired, do anything they wanted. With no obligations to their Orders, not commanded by E.Y.E. or the Secreta, not participating in all the shadowy games.

They both were psykers, unmatched warriors, and scholars, they could find work anywhere.

They could even have children. Have their DNA spliced and combined and turned into an embryo or several.

But they couldn’t do it, could they? They were sworn to E.Y.E., to Secreta. Forever, until their deaths.

‘What;s wrong?’Satevis must have sensed Huoxing’s unease, and Huoxing read worry in the green eyes.

‘Nothing. Just thinking.’

For that Huoxing received a kiss, and sighed into it. Water was warming them from all sides, and Huoxing was melting into it. Huoxing wanted it, wanted to flow into Satevis and stay there, merge like two rivers are merged and turned into a sea.

‘Don’t think,’ ghosted a warm breath over Huoxing’s collarbone. ‘Feel.’

And Huoxing did.

 

At some point Satevis must have ordered a lunch, because when Huoxing went out of the shower, with familiar weight of Song-of-Winter and ammo clips already strapped to both thighs, changing the balance a little, Satevis, wrapped in a bath robe, was unloading trays and bowls from a small cart.

Huoxing lingered in the bathing room doors, taking the chance to admire Satevis. The soft, plushy bath robe tightened over the broad shoulders of the Talion as Satevis bent and moved the food from the cart to the low table in the center of the living area. Satevis was holding back the sleeves to not dip them into the food. Under one of the sleeves was hidden the admittance of Satevis’s belonging to Huoxing.

The robe was just long enough to cover where the hidden, flesh-like compartment for Hawk and the Bear Killer started. The added roundness to thighs was unusual, and Huoxing wanted to take the compartments off Satevis, take the bath robe off. A low, simmering arousal stirred in Huoxing, but it was just a hum, not the consuming flame that they had experienced while bathing, and had let it take them in.

Preparing for the mission, the healers had covered both of them in a thin layer of syntheskin to cover their scars. Two humble art dealers couldn’t possibly have that many battle scars. But despite the disguise Huoxing could trace them all without seeing them. They were a familiar story written on Satevis’s body, the story of Satevis’s glory and pains and rise.

‘Enjoying the view?’ Satevis asked, taking Huoxing out of the trance. The Talion put the last bowl down on the table that barely had any space left by that time.

‘Admiring what’s mine,’ Huoxing answered and went down the three steps to the lowered area, then stopped just in front of Satevis. The Talion was taller, broader, and Huoxing had to tilt the head to look into the green eyes.

‘We have all kinds of delicious food, and your attention is on me?’ The green eyes had a twinkle of laughter in them, and Huoxing had barely suppressed the need to kiss them.

‘You are more delicious than all food in the universe.’ Maybe it was the freedom to be together, and no need to hide from anyone in their feelings, that made Huoxing so... hungry. In many ways. In _all_ the ways. So Huoxing reached out, and pulled Satevis close, and tasted Satevis’s lips, still swollen from their previous kisses.

‘Food,’ rumbled Satevis, and Huoxing did catch the breathlessness of the Divine Talion, ‘is waiting.’

There was pleasure in watching Satevis eat, too, so Huoxing nodded. ‘Food. Then dance. Your promised me, I remember, years ago.’

A low rumble of laughter reverberated in Huoxing’s bones where they were pressed flush to each other. ‘As far as _I_ remember, you were the one who promised me a dance.’

Huoxing remembered, too. But they were bonded now, more than ever, before the law and all powers that be, so didn’t it mean that one’s promise was another’s duty, too? ‘Semantics.’

The floor was littered with pillows and cushions, all in various shades of blue and green, and looked very inviting, so Huoxing dropped on them. Which allowed a good look up Satevis’s leg, and, feeling hungry, hungry, hungry, Huoxing sneaked a palm up the muscled calf. ‘Sit down. Or I'll make you.’

‘Is it a threat or a promise?’ But Satevis sat down, and since there were nobody to scowl them for that, Huoxing scrambled into Satevis’s lap.

‘A promise if you behave as a good Talion should.’

Satevis wrapped Huoxing in the arms, and Huoxing relaxed, listening to the hearts, and realising that they were beating in synch.

‘What is it?’ asked Satevis, and a big hand ran through Huoxing’s hair.

What was it? The hunger, and the low desperation. They have been together for nine years, although sometimes a lot of time could pass between their encounters. And every time it had felt raw—but now it was beyond even that.

‘We are married,’ Huoxing said. ‘I never thought about living outside of the Order, but it was before I met you.’

‘We will die one day,’ Satevis said somewhere into Huoxing’s hair. Satevis’s skin in the collar of the robe smelled of soap and flowery water, and the slight salt of their coupling in the bathing room, and Huoxing pressed a kiss to where the primary heart was beating.

‘And we will be free, together,’ Huoxing finished. It felt like the truth, the only truth.

They were bonded now and into death, and beyond that, and nobody could take that away from them.

 

They spent the rest of the day feeding each other and enjoying each other’s company. Satevis flipped through the local and Federal news. Combined with their knowledge of unofficial resources and Secreta’s information, the situation looked grim.

‘Private armies,’ Satevis growled as they looked through several news resources reporting a huge-scale attack on one of the Federal supply routes. On the outside, it looked like a gang attack: a small flotilla of pirates managed to gain enough firepower to attack a caravan. The resources had a few picts of the flotilla. And those were works no pirate could get.

‘Secreta is waging a war.’ Although it was not surprising—but the scale of it was.

‘And we shouldn’t concern ourselves with that,’ Satevis growled, snapping the holoscreen closed. ‘We are just obedient toy soldiers.’

Huoxing had never seen the Talion so frustrated. Tendons stood out on Satevis'’s neck. The Talion was fighing for control. Huoxing took Satevis’s clenched fist. It was heavy like a rock, and just as hard. Huoxing rubbed the knuckles. ‘We are not their toys,’ Huoxing said quietly, trying to calm the beloved. ‘E.Y.E. is independent enough. You see how the Orders are breaking apart. If Secreta had controlled them, they wouldn’t have let it happen.’ With that Huoxing leaned forward and placed a kiss to the thin tense lips.

It seemed to work, because Satevis let out a sigh and relaxed.

Huoxing took the moment to get into the Talion’s lap again. Held by Satevis, Huoxing felt like they could face the whole world.

‘Rimanah would destroy us all,’ Satevis rumbled. ‘How much longer until Secreta starts sending us to terrorize civilians?’

Huoxing thought about all the news, both official and unofficial, that they had consumed during the previous few hours. ‘Not long.’

‘I have sworn to serve the humankind, not take part in petty games of power.’ Satevis’s voice quietened and resonated with Huoxing’s own thoughts.

Satevis deserved better than this, better than being just a puppet...

A message warning flared on Huoxing’s retinal display, and Huoxing winced, which made Satevis tense. ‘What is it?’

Huoxing knew there was only one messenger who could use that line. ‘Our package is waiting for us.’ Huoxing turned sideways in Satevis’s lap, called up a holoscreen and connected it to the retinal display.

A golden exclamation mark was flicking. ‘Duty calls.’ Huoxing sighed and waved to open the message.

_Your gift has arrived. Check the coordinates._ A set of numbers followed. Satevis was already looking at the local map.

Huoxing sighed again. Their rest was too short, and when would they get another opportunity to be like this with Satevis? Huoxing called the hacking interface and tracked down an agent E.Y.E. had planted on the planet shortly before they had arrived. The human was— Huoxing frowned. _Since when did you start thinking about yourself as non-human?_ The agent was a sleeper, thinking they were just another tourist. Huoxing reached into their mind and broke through the barriers into the secluded part of the agent’s brain and urged them to send a particular message to their suite.

A happy chime played on the suite’s terminal.

Huoxing glanced at Satevis’s holoscreen, and Satevis produced a view of an area. Then Satevis called to the suite terminal, ‘Display the message!’

_Hey, Sati! You finally here! How_ _’s your beloved spouse? I stayed at Monmartre like I told you before. Care to meet for a drink?_

_-J._

At the end of the message was a set of smileys, and Satevis choked. Huoxing smiled. The message was planted into the agent’s mind, and was Huoxing’s doing. Satevis’s silent laughter was a good enough reward, and so beautiful that Huoxing leaned to the beloved and kissed the sound of the laughter off the thin lips. Big arms instantly wound around Huoxing’s waist. What were they doing? But Huoxing wanted to enjoy it for a moment longer.

‘Angelo? Do you know any good places to meet at near Hotel Monmartre?’

‘Of course!’ sounded the cheerful voice. ‘Plaza of Three Lovers are a popular sightseeing spot, and it has several of the best bars at Pigalle, including The Stray Dog, the Literary Café and the Word Order.’

‘Thank you, Angelo,’ said Huoxing. Plaza of Three Lovers was the opposite from where they were heading for their mission goal. ‘I think we will be there until the late night. Would you please prepare a hot bath by that time?’

‘Will do, Reverend Xingsho Di. Have a good evening!’

Satevis pulled Huoxing closer, and Huoxing ran both hands up Satevis’s sides, admiring the perfect muscles, the strong sureness of the beloved—then tried to get up. ‘We need to go. Get dressed appropriately to meet our friend.’

‘Not before you kiss me.’

Huoxing firstly brough their foreheads together, and whispered, not for show, ‘I love you, Sati.’ And then kissed Satevis. It was long and hard and warm, and perfect. Huoxing made a wish for everything to go smoothly and to let them enjoy a hot bath afterward. Not without regret Huoxing pushed up from Satevis’s chest.

The living area was a mess of discarded clothing and forgotten plates and bowls. They had eaten everything, but some wine and silver grapes still remained. Huoxing picked a few and bit into their meaty flesh, releasing the zesty juice, and went to the suitcase.

It was difficult to move with Satevis’s gaze roaming over the body like a heavy and desired touch. Everything had been raw since their bonding... No, Huoxing noted.

Since Gildwelt.

Huoxing lingered over a set of tunics, all in the same cut, but different in colour, then chose a blue one. Caught Satevis’s gaze, but didn’t say anything. Huoxing had been trying not to think about Gildwelt. Decided that the truth would never be revealed.

They dressed swiftly in the same flowy garments in a matter of minutes, and Huoxing turned in time to admire Satevis’s naked form getting clad in the silky cloth. Huoxing smirked, opened an encrypted personal channel, and composed a message then sent it.

Satevis’s back went stiff, and a shudder ran through the powerful form. ‘I take you on your promise, love,’ Satevis growled and it would have sounded intimidating if not for the harmonics of arousal that Huoxing was familiar with.

‘A bath will be awaiting us,’ Huoxing reminded casually and went past Satevis to the balcony door, then turned to the Talion and raised both eyebrows. ‘What are you waiting for? We have a friend to meet!’

Satevis grumbled and laced the tunic, then shouldered past Huoxing. Huoxing chuckled.

They could take on the world together.

The personal flyer was barely fit for Satevis’s massive figure. The flyer had two seats—just an oval egg with a computer. Huoxing got on the seat behind Satevis and leaned forward on the broad back. Satevis smelled of water and warmth, and adrenaline that was starting to course into their systems.

Satevis started the engine, and Huoxing felt the movement of the beloved’s hands. The flyer took off the balcony, and Huoxing recalled a few mantras, entering a meditative state, controlling the levels of adrenaline. About half an hour into the flight muscles in Satevis’s back flexed again, and Huoxing leaned away.

‘It’s time.’ Satevis’s voice filled the enclosed space entirely. The Talion put a few commands into the flyer’s computer, overriding the system, then opened the cupola. Wind rushed in, flapping Huoxing’s clothes.

Huoing got on the feet and waited until Satevis did the same. The ocean was blue and grey canvas under them. Huoxing reached for Satevis’s hand, and together, they jumped.

The cold water made Huoxing gasp, the rasp of it felt raw on the skin protected only by thin fabric. It was a struggle to keep diving lower, and Huoxing realised that water was trying to push them up. It would never have happened, had they been in their armour. Huoxing turned the lungs to water-breathing and let the water rush down into them. It burned, but the burn was only momentary.

_I long for our armour_ , flashed on Huoxing’s retinal display. Satevis was holding onto Huoxing’s hand, moving like a strange sea creature. Then Satevis turned to Huoxing, and in the twilight of the water the green eyes were gems. _But I like you out of it._

Huoxing glared at the beloved, and set aside the reminder to plan a revenge on Satevis.

They descended into the depths, shredding their clothing along the way. The fabric disintegrated in the salt water.  The water was crushing down on them when they reached the needed depth which Huoxing confirmed by consulting with the retinal display. They searched the area and called the shuttle.

After Gildwelt, Huoxing’s ability to reach for cybernetic organisms and machines had reached a new level.

A shadow appeared in the twilight of the water, like a giant floating mammal. Huoxing was moving hands and feet, staying in one place, as the shuttle approached them. It was sleek and small, although bigger than the flyer. It didn’t have much firepower, but it had heavy defence that would let it leave the planet and get on the orbit.

Gravi-engines were noiseless, but Huoxing felt the movement in the bones. The shuttle stopped just in front of them, and they both floated to the side of it. Satevis let go of Huoxing’s hand and pressed a panel. A small yellow light flickered for a moment, nothing more than a reflection in a beast’s eye, and then a door slid to the side, welcoming them in.

Huoxing let Satevis to the front, then swam after the beloved, and the door closed. The small chamber made them stand pressed to each other, but Huoxing had no objections. The water in the sea was quite cold in such a depth, and although Satevis had not been radiating as much heat as usual, Huoxing leaned on the broad back again.

Satevis entwined their fingers.

Water was being siphoned out of the chamber, and when it reached the level of Satevis’s head, the Talion’s chest contracted in a gasp as Satevis turned to air-breathing. When the water lowered to Huoxing’s head, Huoxing did the same, and gasped and coughed excess water out of lungs. They would burn for a few hours, but it was a price to pay.

Satevis must have changed the body temperature, because the back under Huoxing’s cheek had been warming up. Huoxing soaked that warmth like a blessing.

Satevis moved forward and opened the doors to the shuttle proper.

**Be careful.**

‘I _am_ careful,’ Huoxing coughed out, trailing after Satevis and accepting a towel out of the beloved’s hands.

‘I didn’t say you weren’t,’ Satevis said.

Huoxing tensed and replayed the words.

They were not spoken by Satevis.

The shuttle swayed beneath Huoxing’s feet—but a firm hand caught Huoxing. ‘Huo? Everything all right?’

‘You wouldn’t delay the mission because of me, would you?’ Huoxing tried to say it lightly.

But Satevis said, ‘I would.’ So earnestly and quietly.

Huoxign turned away, and realised that the tremors were coming not from the shuttle but from the inside. ‘I don’t feel well, but it must be from the cold water.’ And to show Satevis it was true, Huoxing wrapped the towel tighter around the shoulders.

‘It’s not the cold—or rather, the cold is only a part of it, but if you promise to tell me later, I will let it slide.’

Huoxing wanted to tell Satevis _now_ , but didn’t know how to do it, so simply nodded. ‘Yes, love. I promise. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine.’ Warm lips touched Huoxing’s forehead, and the warmth of Satevis’s body washed over the cenobite for a moment, but then Satevis moved down to the pilot console.

Satevis’s words sounded in Huoxing;s head. Satevis promised to delay the mission to help Huoxing. It was so tempting: to return to their suite and enjoy the hot bath, enjoy delicacies, make love to each other... It would chase Huoxing’s pain away, all troubles, all madness. Why was Satevis always so tempting?

Huoxing walked to the back of the shuttle, stretched and made a few basic excercises to level the body temperature. Then Huoxing stopped by the armoury. In its depth, protected by a layer of various screens, was their armour.

‘I wish we could put it on,’ sounded Satevis’s voice. It sounded not like the solemn tone from a few moments ago.

‘It would look too intimidating,’ Huoxing reminded the beloved. Trying to sound normal.

‘I know, I know, love,’ Satevis sighed and it echoed in the shuttle. ‘But I prefer to be in my armour when I’m around anyone but you. And out of anything when I’m with you.’

Huoxing smiled, then opened a chest near the armoury and took out two bodygloves. They were a version of the bodyglove they wore under the armour, though more heavily padded and offering better protection that the standard bodyglove didn’t need. Under the two bodygloves were the same pairs of tunics and pants they had in the briefcase in the hotel, compressed and packed in small plastic wraps. They would change into these garments on their return way to the hotel, if need be.

Huoxing left the towel on the chest, put on the bodyglove, and checked the weapon compartments on the thighs. The bodyglove had been designed with the compartments in mind, and opened at the seams to let the weapons out. Song-of-Winter vibrated under Huoxing’s touch when the cenobite let it out, then hid the sword again, and carried the other bodyglove to Satevis.

Satevis was conversing with the shuttle’s computer, inputting sets of commands. The Talion looked comfortable sitting naked in the pilot chair. And not that Huoxing objected but they had to get dressed. Satevis stood up, eyes still on the monitors, and reached out. Huoxing gave the bodyglove and admired again the flex of muscles as Satevis put on the garment. Satevis rolled the shoulders, then patted the thighs and took out the Bear Killer, then Hawk.

‘I hope they won’t be needed,’ Huoxing noted, watching as the light glinted off the fine blue edge of the sagaris.

Satevis’s black-clad fingers tightened on the haft, then in a blink of an eye Hawk was hidden again. ‘I hope so, too.’ Satevis sat down again, fingers playing over the console. Huoxing leaned on the back of the chair.

‘Going out in the air in thirty seconds,’ Satevis warned.

Huoxing called the hacking interface and searched for nearby objects. There was an old docking terminal by the beach, a deserted holovideo set, and when Huoxing brushed it, it answered with a nonsense of static. There was a parking machine further down the road, and two computers in two streetlights, deserted and alone among their silent kindred. ‘The area of exit is clear,’ Huoxing said, closing the interface but leaving a background process of searching for objects.

‘Emerging in three... two... one!’

Huoxing hold onto the back of the chair as the shuttle tilted slightly up, although the inner systems had compensated the angle.

The main viewscreen cleared and showed the area with added map markers. The area they had chosen to emerge by was a wasteland of abandoned buildings—a whole district of various buildings, deserted some time along the process of Pigalle’s development: a ruin of the docking area used for boats, a carcass of one boat like sad bones of an animal that had thrown itself to the shore, an elegant maze of streets criss-crossing each other, holding the decaying body of the disctrict like stitches. The buildings with their crumbled walls and sticking armature and blasted windows were the ruined organs.

And, like any decaying body, it contained life.

The sensors of the shuttle showed moving silhouettes in the ruins, in shambles, shacks, picking the place apart.

The figures weren’t even augmented; Huoxing’s background search was returning nothing but an odd old terminal, or a survived autocooker, or an agonizing car being picked apart for scraps by human vultures who didn’t even know that the mind of the car was still struggling...

Most of humans could take care of themselves, survive even in harsh environments.

Machines, for the most part, could not.

‘Poor bastards,’ Satevis muttered.

Huoxing startled. The cenobite was not sure whether it was directed to the humans or the machines.Although the humans and the machines were united, in the way that none of them knew that a shuttle was passing overhead; no eye, neither naked nor augmented, could have spotted it. Huoxing wondered whether they knew that just over the sea, there was life and opulence. Most likely built on the bones of carcasses such as that one.

The wasteland had ended, turning into bare rock. A red spot marking their destination was place in the nearby mountains just ahead of them.

‘Estimated time of arrival...’ Satevis said, measuring the distance. ‘Three minutes. It’s a cave, with an opening big enough to drive the shuttle through. Good for us.’

Huoxing frowned. ‘Maybe too good.’

A hand patted Huoxing’s knee. ‘Don’t give up hope yet, my love. It still might turn out easy, and in an hour or two we will be having our bath.’

‘That is reassuring,’ Huoxing smiled. ‘I will search the area for humans. Just in case.’ Huoxing moved to the seat next to the pilot’s and sank into the chair.

The green eyes was watching the movement. ‘Are you sure? You don’t need to strain yourself so, the sensors can do it, too.’

‘They can’t sense psychic activity. And I need to flex my mental muscles.’ Although Huoxing could admit that Satevis’s concern felt good. Warm.

Satevis’s grin was more hot than warm. ‘I like it when you flex your muscles.’

Huoxing chuckled and relaxed into the chair. With half-closed eyelids, Huoxing reached into the ever-burning well of psychic power, and let half of the spirit fly up from the shuttle then disperse across the area, just enough to reach the blackness of the mountains and caves. The touch was soft so as not to announce thei approach, but it returned significant results: a candle-like presence in the cave they were heading to, with two more prominent at its sides.

Huoxing returned to the shuttle. ‘One, who, I assume, is our... gift-giver. With two guards. I sensed no ill intentions or deceit, although I couldn’t reach too deep. I don’t want to scare our friend. I’m well, love,’ Huoxing added quietly, hoping it would reassure Satevis.

The Talion nodded. ‘I believe you.’ Satevis looked back to the viewscreen, and smiled. ‘Brings back memories, right? About DX-61.’

Huoxing glanced at the mountains, too. The caves that the mountains were peppered with like fine cheese with holes did look similar to the mining complex’s docking area. Where they had met each other. Where they had kissed, and loved each other for the first time.

‘It does.’

Satevis led the shuttle right into its gaping mouth, scanning the cave. It was just big enough for the shuttle, with a narrow passway on the opposite side leading into a smaller cave. According to the sensors, their ‘friend’ was waiting them in that small cave with their bodyguards.

Huoxing got up, picking and setting a slim bracelet on the left wrist. That one-use bracelet would ensure the encrypted money transaction would be untraceble. Satevis’s bulk was reassuring behind Huoxing. The door parted before them, and Huoxing jumped on the rocky surface of the cave. It was glassy, and Huoxing noticed a strange thing that sensors hadn’t found earlier. ‘The cave is artificial,’ Huoxing subvocalized over the private channel to Satevis.

The walls were impossibly smooth and gently curving.

‘Plasma-cut?’ Satevis suggested.

‘Probably. Maybe during the construction of the district we have seen. A possible site for a hotel.’ The cave was big enough to become a hall or a studio suite—or even a docking bay, like they used it for.

‘Why was it abandoned?’

Huoxing didn’t know the answer to that question. It could have been anything, from the lack of financial resources to a sudden change of mind of the owners.

The shuttle was blocking most of the light pouring from outside—strange that it didn’t reflect on the glassy surface of the cave—but in the entrace of the other cave, a low warm light was seen, and Huoxing moved there. The light was emitting from two lanterns standing on the floor. The lamps were small, old, and Huoxing could say that they were genuine, a few hundred years old, made from wrought iron, with wax candles dripping in them, dying to give light.

Behind the lanterns, stood their ‘friend’. They were clad in a straight dress with rich embroidery, silver on green, and long-sleeved. The person’s face was lacking in definite features, making them a perfect agent of whomever they were working for. The dress was definitely a disguise, much like the silky suits that were waiting for Huoxing and Satevis onboard the shuttle. Further in the shadows behind the ‘friend’ were hulking figures of the bodyguards. They wore nondescript body armour, and had stunguns on their hips. The bodyguards were bigger than even Satevis, and their faces looked alike. Probably genhanced to look that way, like the agent who had most definitely aquired the nonmemorable features through certain procedures.

‘We come in peace,’ Huoxing announced as calmly as possible.

The agent smiled, but the smile looked painted on the strange, doll-like face devoid of any traces of life, struggles, pains, emotions. ‘We know. We welcome you, Venerable knights.’

Huoxing wanted to inquire about the item they had come for—but all sounds died before they could make their way through Huoxing’s throat as the agent shed their skin.

Literally.

They stretched their arms up and put them on their head, then tugged to the sides, like one would halve an orange by tugging it in opposite directions. The skin and hair slid into halves like the skin of a ripe fruit; the face was split in two and tugged to the left and to the right. When the crack came to their collarbone, they tugged the seam down their front as if it were nothing but a shirt. It was coming apart together with the clothes. As it reached their lower body, they shrugged the clothes and skin off their shoulders and tugged off their arms, then proceeded to take it off their legs. It looked like the view Huoxing had witnessed countless times: a knight taking off the bodyglove; and just like a knight, the agent looked relieved as if wearing that skin was a heavy burden.

All of it pooled at the agent’s legs, and the ripped, uneven seams of the skin were slowly dripping blood into the clothes.

What was revealed under all that looked terrifyingly human—but off. Their face was more beautiful than their previous one was, but the eyes were pits of blackness of space with flickering specks of stars; their limbs were long, but slightly too long for a human; their skin was of the same rosy colour their shed skin had been, but there were scales on the shoulders, glistening like the armour of a newly born bug.

And there was nothing human about the perfectly round hole in the center of their chest, black as despair—a pit of nothingness, a well of silence.

Huoxing’s stomach twisted into knots, gaze drawn into the abyss of the hole, and bile rose in the throat.

The ‘agent’ was flanked by two towering creatures on hooved legs, with veils obscuring their faces,1 although Huoxing knew that there was nothing underneath, no mouth, no eyes, no nose. On their thick necks was hanging a noose, and their heads were crowned with iron thorns.

On their thick belts, was a symbol of solar eclipse.

‘Kraak…’ Huoxing rasped, although the creatures were not weilding their infamous hammers.  The ‘agent’ wasn’t armed either.

Huoxing gripped Song-of-Winter—and realised that hadn’t registered the moment when the sword had been freed.

The slender creature’s brows, golden and adorned with pearls, knit, and the face crumpled in a sad expression—more becoming than the fake expressions of the shed skin. ‘Wait! We came here in peace, too.’ The flames in the lanterns flickered in synch.

Huoxing made a step back—and heard Satevis’s heavy breathing.

Satevis.

The Metastreumonic creatures kept their arms at their sides, and Huoxing dared to glance at the beloved. Satevis was gripping the haft of Hawk so hard the material of the bodyglove was pulled taut and ready to crack.

Like the skin that was pooled around the legs of the Metastreumonic creature.

Satevis’s chest was moving, up and down, up and down, in a rhythm of unrolling nightmare.

‘We came for you,’ the creature said, and their voice was a sweet melody that filled Huoxing with longing, ‘because you are touched, both of you, Huoxing of the House of Scorpio and Satevis of Chorus Aqua, blessed knights.’

A strange sound cracked across the cave, and it took Huoxing a moment to realise it was a bark of laughter coming from Satevis. ‘Blessed?’ Satevis growled. Lips peeled over teeth, face contorted in a feral, terrifying grimace that no _mempo_ could match.

A divine embodiment of war. An angel of death.

‘What are our blessings?’

The delicate creature gestured to Satevis. ‘Being wrath and death, and carrying the ability to destroy worlds—and yet, fighting to protect, not destroy. Letting love fill your hearts.’ The black pits of the eyes turned to Huoxing, and Huoxing had a hard time looking into them and not into the hole below. ‘Knowing every thought of a human mind, being rejected and hated and feared—and yet, having enough goodness to fill your hearts with love.’ The creature spread their arms in an encompassing gesture. ‘Being human and machine—and being our flesh and blood at the same time.’

Huoxing made another step back, get away, get away… A roar filled the small cave and shook the twin flames, and Satevis whirled past Huoxing, but Houxing couldn’t _not_ look into the black eyes pits.

**We are the same, blessed knights. You just have to remember. You are like unto a god.**

The creature was standing still even as Satevis was roaring and hacking into the delicate inhuman face, into the dark flesh.

And Huoxing looked lower, into the black hole—and fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  1 An unusual occurence indeed, for all other reports of the Kraak describe them as wearing a burlap sack.


	9. 01000100 01101001 01110110 01101001 01101110 01100101

Huo’s sharp cry had snapped something in Satevis, and Satevis stumbled, whirling around.

Was Huo hurt?

Satevis looked at the floor: it was littered with unidentifyable chunks of flesh, and from under the pile of it at Satevis peered one eye with specks of stars in it. The flesh was smoking and melting and dissipating—and emitting a gentle smell like the incense they used to burn in the Temple halls. Satevis’s lungs were working to the strain.

Hearts clenching, Satevis searched around—and found Huo on the knees, palms pressed to the head and tugging at the hair as if Huo wanted to tear something out.

Satevis scrambled to the beloved, realised that something heavy was in the right hand, found Hawk’s haft. The head was dripping with dark ichor. Satevis dropped the sagaris and called, ‘Huo!’ It tore through the throat.

On Huo’s face, the twin flames were glimmering on two black streams of tears.

‘Huo!’ Satevis called louder and reached out.

‘Don’t… Just kill me.’ Huo’s voice was a whisper, broken, tearing Satevis’s hearts apart.

Encasing Satevis’s spine in ice.

‘What are you talking about? Let me help you, I—’

‘Kill me!’ The words slapped Satevis across the face. ‘You have to! You know you do! It’s what you are bound to do! I am… touched, changed…’ Huo was shaking and rocking back and forth. ‘Kill me!’

The creature spoke about wrath—but it was right. There was love, too.

And so Satevis let love fill both hearts, and knelt, and wrapped Huo in the arms. Huo’s hair was sweaty, and Huo’s skin was fever-hot, and Huo was so small. ‘I love you.’ Satevis held Huo and rubbed the back enclosed in the bodyglove, and kissed Huo’s cheeks, tasting salt. It was the salt of blood, not of tears. Satevis glanced at the pile of flesh that had almost dissolved into the air.

The black eye with specks of stars was filled with tenderness.

‘I remember,’ Huo said at last. ‘What happened on Gildwelt. I freed a god—and I have been touched in return. I know what we are. I know… _everything_.’

Satevis smiled into Huo’s hair. ‘You always do.’

Huo twisted in Satevis’s lap. Huo’s eyes were gold and black. ‘I know all lies and truths. How we were created. What Secreta Secretorum is. What an ocean sings about. What a star feels when it is being devoured by a black hole. _Everything_ , Sati. Are you not afraid?’

Satevis held Huo’s face and kissed the beloved on the lips. They were warm and familiar, tasting of blood and spices, and the residual salt of the sea where they had swam. ‘Of the truth? Maybe. Of you? Never. Share your burden with me.’ It was the most natural thing to say. They were always together, in life and in death, and beyond. And if divinity was a burden, then Satevis would help Huo carry it.

Huo touched Satevis’s cheek, and Satevis kissed the center of Huo’s palm, ran a hand over Huo’s side. Nodded.

And opened the mind to Huo.

 

It was… heavy.


	10. 01000011 01100001 01101100 01101100

They were strange, different from what I had seen when they had protected me.

I thought we were late, but we were not.

We were just in time.

I had to carry the Governor inside the cave, for it was blocked by the aircraft and we could not drive our vessel inside. I touched the aircraft. The spirit was waiting, inquiring why one’s pilot hadn’t returned. I reassured one that the pilot was well and one would return with us. One was cautious of me—one was a Temple-maintained spirit. I convinced one to not send a message back to the Temple.

One couldn’t have done it anyway for I was blocking all transmissions.

The two looked as though they were waiting for us.

They stood, hand in hand, in the smaller cave, and two lights were dancing at their feet. They held their weapons, Hawk and Song-of-Winter, but freely, like a human would hold a hand, completely relaxed.

I could not read them. They were beyond my perception.

I raised an arm and showed them its true form—a black tendril of living metal and thought and said, ‘I apologise for all this masquerade, but I had to wear a disguise to be admitted onto this planet.’ It was not difficult to arrange a pass once I accepted that form, scanned from one of the Governor’s people.

One of them—Satevis—smiled. ‘Lono.’

The other—though it was difficult to distinguish the two now, for they were blurring and merging with each other—like rivers that were turning into one sea. ‘We must tell our kindred what we know about our origins and the Metastreum.’

I nodded. ‘You must tell—though not only to your kindred, but to the humankind.’

They laced their fingers together and melted into each other even more. I felt _something_ passing between them—not a flow of data, but something else. Something more.

‘We will be hunted.’ I cannot recall which one of them said that.

I felt pulled, drawn to them. What was unfolding, they knew already. The possible outcomes of that discussion, they had calculated.

‘I will jam the signal from your implants. I’m already jamming it. And there are others.’ I stepped aside, letting in another visitor, my companion.

‘Governor Belyaeva,’ one of the knight-cenobites bowed slightly.

‘You have friends, knights, and they don’t forget your deeds.’ She was wearing light armour, and behind us, in the bigger cave, were her people—to protect the two knights as she claimed, but I wondered whether it was to protect the world from the two knights.

Did the Governor understand who were standing before her?

‘I destroyed the entirety of Gildwelt,’ one of them—Star of the House of Scorpio, I think—said suddenly. The guilt rippled through the cave and rearranged the atomic structure of the rock around us.

‘You stopped an endless war,’ the Governor said. I think she didn’t feel it as acutely as I could.

‘By destroying the armies.’

‘You can’t build whatever empire you are trying to build on blood and bones!’ It was said by one of the two, too, but they were blurring, blurring.

‘All empires are built on blood and bones,’ she said quietly. ‘I can offer your protection. Vodyanitsa is independent, and we have allies. The Federation have ceased to be what it was meant to be long time ago—and Secreta is no different. Help us change it. Help us save humankind.’

The two exchanged glances.

‘We shall witness it together,’ one of them said to the other.

The other smiled, and turned to us. ‘Then let us witness.’

 

The Divines are waiting for the right time to announce what they need to announce.

If you are reading this, it means that you are ready for the truth—and you shall know it soon.

 

**01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01110010 01110101 01110100 01101000 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110111 01101111 01101011 01100101 01101110 00101110**

**Author's Note:**

> 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110000 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110001 00100000 00110000 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110000 00110000 00110000 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110001 00110000 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110001 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110000 00100000 00110000 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110000 00110000 00110000 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110001 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00100000 00110000 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110000 00110000 00110000 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110001 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110000 00110000 00110001 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110001 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110001 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110001 00110000 00100000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110000 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110001 00100000 00110000 00110000 00110001 00110000 00110001 00110001 00110001 00110000


End file.
